


Life Lived as Bell's Theorem

by MrsHamill



Series: Raising Madison [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Kid Fic, M/M, Post Episode: s02e06 Trinity, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6035008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>J.S. Bell showed that if you break up a molecule and change the spin of one electron, the spin of the other electrons originally joined will immediately change too, no matter where they are.</i><br/>-- Bell's Theorem, via Scott Adams</p>
<p>The John and Rodney show move to Toronto and raise a child together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Lived as Bell's Theorem

**Author's Note:**

> Really, this was co-authored by Nansi Alexander, it was her twisted mind who came up with much of it. Mucho, mucho thanks to Susan, Christi and Amireal for beta work and cheerleading above and beyond the call of duty.

* * *

Madison had been driving Jean crazy the whole day, being stubborn and loud as only a three year old could be. It was shaping up to be one of the very few times when she regretted giving up work outside the home to be a stay-at-home mom, and if she had to listen to Maddie whine one more word... 

"NO!" Madison yelled, knocking over the bowl containing her normally favorite Cheerios. 

"That's it, young lady," Jean snapped. "I swear, I would sell you to the Romany if they came to the door. You are going into time-out." She bodily lifted her first-born (and only, at this rate) child in her arms, tried to ignore the squiggling and screaming, ended up tucking Madison under one arm as she stood. "Madison Meredith Miller, I am going to..."

Her daughter was saved from a fate worse than death by a knock at the door. Making sure Madison was securely tucked under her arm, Jean opened the door and was nearly floored by who she saw on the other side. Dragging her jaw back up, she whispered, "Mer?" Even Madison had gone silent in surprise.

"Hi." Yes, it was her prodigal brother, remarkably. "Uh..." He was studying the doormat and Jean frowned. He looked like shit. Before she could speak again, he continued, in a low murmur. "Do you... do you remember the definition of home, Jeannie?" he asked, his gaze finally rising to meet hers.

Her face cleared as she registered the pain she saw in his eyes. "Yeah," she said, holding the screen door open. "C'mon in, Mer."

* * *

"He what?"

"He left. It was early this morning." Elizabeth looked about as shell-shocked as John felt. "He had a big box and his duffle, said to send the rest back with the Daedalus. Then he had Campbell dial Earth and he... left."

John felt the world wobble under his feet. Unsteady, he found one of the chairs in Elizabeth's office and pretty much fell on it. "When I asked you where he was I wasn't expecting that," he murmured. His mind seemed to be on stand-by.

"Something must have happened. I know he was blaming himself for Katie Brown's death." Elizabeth looked hard at John and he was actually glad he was feeling numb and therefore unable to look guilty. "I thought we were past that, past the events of Doranda, but I know you and he were still--"

"We hadn't talked about it for a while." John wasn't even thinking as he talked. "He... he'd apologized, again."

"I know he did." Elizabeth's voice was oddly gentle. "He apologized to all of us, John. He felt horrible about it, you know. I know he'd come to terms with it, he'd told me as much."

"I couldn't trust him." John licked his lips and looked around for something -- anything -- to focus on. "I told him, he'd have to earn it back. Elizabeth, he _played_ me, used our... our friendship to test his pet theories. I trusted him and he abused that." John wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more, Elizabeth or himself.

"It's been over three months since that happened, John." She was still staring at him gravely and John wiped his sweaty palms on his BDUs. "John. There was more, wasn't there?"

John swallowed and looked away. Rodney had just _left_? "We... we had an argument. Yesterday. It wasn't... I mean, it was personal."

"I know you did. Do you know how I know? Because five people came to me, wondering why you and Rodney were screaming at each other in a locked lab." She folded her fingers together and leaned on her forearms across her desk. "I'm not really U.S. Government, John, so I can ask, even though you don't have to tell. You and Rodney were involved, weren't you?"

So much for closets, John thought bitterly. He'd thought the walls were nice and thick; too bad they were made out of glass. He didn't know what to say so he said nothing and let that silence speak for him.

"It would take an idiot not to see how much he cares for you, he practically idolizes you. I know he broke your trust, but--"

"But nothing." John found his anger, finally, and let it fill in the empty corners of his mind. Rodney was gone? "Elizabeth, this is none of your business."

"It becomes my business when it affects my people, John, and that goes for you and Rodney."

"Well, obviously, it doesn't matter any more, because Rodney's gone." Rodney was gone? How could Rodney be gone? How could he have just left, just packed up and not told anyone... "We'll just have to make do with Radek and the other geniuses here." John knew why Rodney was gone, because when Rodney accidentally let it slip that he was in love with John, John froze him out. Fuck-buddies don't talk about love. "I have work to do." Because John was a cold, heartless bastard who couldn't love _anyone_ , even someone who he did love as much as he loved Atlantis, really more than anything, and no, he wasn't even tempted to think about that sentence again.

Elizabeth sighed. "I..." She swallowed and shook her head. "Fine. I'll call a senior staff meeting at oh-nine-hundred. I'll see you there."

John nodded shortly and left. He had work to do. He'd better just get to it.

* * *

"What happened?"

"What didn't?" Rodney pulled his laptop out and set it up on the desk in Jeannie's spare room. "Thanks for letting me crash here. I'll find something to buy soon and get my stuff--"

"Mer, what happened?" 

"Jeannie..."

"Meredith..." Jeannie smiled from her seat on the single bed. "C'mon, Mer. Spill. I haven't seen you this down since Buster ran away."

"Buster didn't run away, he was picked up by the pound," Rodney replied, automatically.

"Mer. I'm your sister. I'm not going away until you tell me why you look like the bad end to a good drunk."

Rodney sighed and sat down at the small desk, avoiding her gaze, wishing he could avoid the conversation altogether, knowing he wouldn't be able to. "I've done some terrible things, Jeannie," he finally muttered, looking down at his hands. "I thought... I had some theories, I thought I could do... this... thing, and I couldn't. And it ended really badly. I lost... I lost..." He sighed.

Jeannie reached out and put her hand over his arm. "Mer?"

He was really too close to crying for his own comfort, and wasn't that ridiculous? He was a grown man. What did it matter that he just lost... just lost... everything? "I'm responsible for two deaths." Jeannie inhaled sharply but didn't speak, let him continue in a whisper. "Collins... a tech. The experiment, my theory, it... I can't tell you everything, but he died. And Katie..." Katie Brown, who had even liked him. "She found something, I thought it was inert, thought it couldn't do anything, she wasn't even a physicist, dammit, she's -- she was -- a botanist. And I was wrong and the thing wasn't inert and I couldn't get it to stop... She died. And it was my fault."

"Meredith," she said, dropping to her knees next to his chair. "I know you. You're arrogant and self-serving and can be extremely stubborn, not to mention bone-headed, but you're not a killer. I can't see you killing."

Rodney turned his head slowly, to look into her eyes. He knew what she saw, because he was a killer. He had killed -- space vampires, humans, what was the difference? "And John," he whispered, watching Jeannie's eyes fill with the tears he wanted but wouldn't allow himself to have. "I lost him, too."

* * *

John had explicit directions on how to get to his destination, 1625 Swiftdale Place, which was right near the heart of Toronto in a neighborhood called Don Mills. He'd never been to Toronto before, and he was surprised at how old it was, how clean it was. He knew it was big, but he could have sworn he saw signs to a _castle_ of all things while he was on his way to the address, the house.

The house where Rodney lived, hopefully.

It was a cul-de-sac and John parked his car one house over from 1625. He could see a child, a pretty, blonde girl, playing in the yard of 1625 and that threw him -- could he have the wrong house? 

He got out of his rental and walked down the sidewalk, hesitating at the gate -- in yes, a white picket fence -- and looked at the little girl. She didn't look old enough to be playing with an Erector Set, but that's what she was doing, fiddling with a large, beautiful Ferris wheel, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

John watched her for a while, amused at her concentration, her little brow furrowed, her fingers occupied with something. "Um, excuse me?" John finally said, hesitantly. He didn't want to scare her by talking to her, but didn't want to intrude on the yard if he had the wrong house.

She held up her hand imperiously, her gaze still on her toy. "Just a minute," she said in her high, little-girl voice and John had to grin. With a final nod, she did something to what looked like the battery pack and the Ferris wheel began to turn, slowly and elegantly. "Got it!" she crowed.

"Congratulations," John said, still grinning. It was a pretty neat Ferris wheel, after all. "I'm looking for Dr. McKay, can you tell me if--"

She looked up as he spoke and after a moment, her eyes grew wide and her mouth formed a perfect O. Instantly, John realized she looked almost exactly like Rodney and his heart wrenched sideways -- could Rodney have gotten married and had a kid? 

"I know who you are!" the girl said, suddenly grinning (and it was Rodney's grin too; okay, not as crooked, but the same blue-blue eyes, the same nose, the same dimples). She leapt to her feet and opened the gate for him. "You're Unca John!" 

As soon as John stepped through the gate (on autopilot), he was tackled, her arms coming around his legs in a death grip. "Um... hi?" he said, getting a little nervous.

"Did you bring me something?" she asked, breathlessly, looking up into his eyes.

"Uh... no," John said, more confused than ever. "I didn't really... I mean, I didn't know about..."

"That's okay, Unca Mer says I'm too mer-- mer-cin-ary, anyway," she said, only stumbling a little at the ten dollar word. She grabbed his hand and tugged, all but dragging him up the walk to the front porch. The front door was open but the screen door was closed. "Unca Mer!" the girl yelled, before they even got to the door. "There's a guy here to see you!"

"Dammit Madison!" John heard bellowed from the depths of the house and his heart skipped. It was Rodney's voice. "How many times have I told you never talk... to..."

It was Rodney. He appeared in the doorway and he froze as his gaze met John's. 

The girl -- Madison? -- giggled as she opened the screen door. "He's not a stranger, he's Unca John! See? And I got the Ferris wheel working too!"

Without taking his gaze away from John's face, Rodney asked, "What was the matter with it?"

She shrugged, still holding the screen door open. "Had the wires on the wrong 'lectrodes. Can I watch my show now?"

"Batteries, Three-M," Rodney murmured and she said, "Oh!" before running outside again to her wheel. John caught the screen door before it could slam, but he still couldn't speak, couldn't force his throat to release its captives, now that he was finally face-to-face with Rodney again.

"You should come inside," Madison said in passing as she flashed into the house between Rodney and John. "You let all the bugs in!"

Rodney swallowed and looked down, finally breaking eye-contact. "Yeah, I guess she's right. You should come in." John couldn't decide how Rodney's voice sounded -- tired? Defeated? He looked good -- thinner, older, somehow, and his hair was shorter. There were lines on his face John didn't remember being there before.

Not the warmest of welcomes, though John didn't know what he had been expecting after more than two years. He stepped into the foyer of the house and let the screen door close behind him. The house was a little ranch, all on one level, comfortable-looking in its nineteen-fifties style. The wooden floor was gleaming and the walls were painted a pale, warm green. From John's right, he could see a living room containing a large, flat panel TV set, at which sat Madison, her eyes rapt. Some weird song began.

"Um." John was still having trouble getting words out. "Hi?" he tried, experimentally.

Rodney could never be accused of having a poker face, but this time John couldn't tell what he was feeling thinking, dammit. 

"Why are you here?" Rodney asked, quietly, flatly.

"Nice to see you too, McKay," John muttered. "I guess... I mean, I'm here to see you. I... guess."

"You guess?" Rodney wasn't going to take it easy on him, apparently.

"Well, no," John sighed and ran his hand over his head. "I am. I mean, I've been looking for you."

"You shouldn't have had to look very hard. I've been in this house for almost two years, and held the chair in the physics department at UT for longer than that." Rodney crossed his arms over his chest; his face was still closed. "So why don't you quit bullshitting and tell me why you're really here?"

"Language, Unca Mer," John heard from the other room.

"Quit eavesdropping, Three-M," Rodney said without moving.

Aware he was on weak territory, John licked his lips nervously. "Can... I come in?"

"You already are in. Apparently you're determined to stay, so you might as well come back to my study, out of earshot." Rodney sighed and turned, leading John deeper into the house. There were pictures on the walls of the hallway; most of people John had never seen, some of Rodney, holding various degrees and several with the little girl who had been in the front yard. There were other people that John didn't recognize, some older and some younger, about Rodney's age. 

Rodney's study looked like it had originally started out life as a bedroom, a very small, very oddly shaped bedroom. There were bookshelves on every available wall space, including under the two windows and behind the medium-sized desk which was carrying an extra large load. There were pictures in here as well, small ones in frames scattered around the room and on the desk in-between piles of papers and booklets. Rodney sat down behind the desk and shifted a pile to one side so he could see the only other chair in the room, which John took, sitting gingerly.

After a few minutes of silence -- apparently Rodney really wasn't in the mood to be social -- John said, "Nice... I mean, nice place. House. Comfy."

"Yeah." Rodney's voice was as flat and he stared at John through hooded eyes. "It's home."

"No, Atlantis is home," John said, almost automatically. If he hadn't been looking at Rodney, he would have missed the very slight flinch.

"Not anymore." 

John looked away, unable to maintain eye-contact. "It could be, you know. Could still be."

"No. It couldn't." Rodney snorted. "Are you going to come out and say why you're here or are we going to dance around some more? Because I've got to tell you, your scintillating conversation is keeping me from work I have to finish."

John sighed and rubbed his eyes. "You really aren't going to take it easy on me, are you?"

"Why should I?"

"For... you know, I mean, it's the first time I've seen you since..."

"Since I wised up and left?" There. That was an emotion, John just couldn't translate it. Normal Rodney bluster or overwhelming hate or something else?

John frowned at Rodney. "Since you _left_. Since you packed up and left without a word, without even saying goodbye."

"What the hell good would that have done?" Rodney's face was set and pale. "Unless you mean to say I missed the 'good riddance' party, or that someone -- who, I don't know -- might have begged me to stay?"

"Not a good riddance party!" John said, trying hard to keep from getting angry; he'd forgotten just what a pain in the ass Rodney could be. "And yes, we would have liked to have had a chance to talk you out of it!"

"Please. The only one who might have missed me was Radek, and that's just because he hates being a manager." 

"You've been missed by a lot of us, by me too," John said, his jaw working.

"Oh, well, congratulations on your ability to say so."

"Goddamnit, McKay, what do you want me to say?"

"Nothing! You walked into _my_ house. You tell me why you're here because I sure as hell didn't invite you."

It was just a continuation of their last argument, John suddenly realized. More than two years old and still going strong, apparently. John really had no idea how to stop it, just as he hadn't known two years before. Rodney was right -- he'd come to Rodney, like Mohammed to the mountain, now he had to pony up. He took a deep breath and tried hard to relax. "I came because... I needed to see... we need to talk."

"Talk? _You_ want to _talk_? My God, what next, a break-dancing elephant in drag? An honest politician?"

Okay, so John deserved that one. No sense in disagreeing. "Yes. So I'm not good at it, you're not either! But I wanted... I needed to see you." To apologize, to beg for forgiveness. "To, you know, clear the air."

The glare Rodney gave him was furious; had there been any incendiary material on John, it would have combusted from that stare. "There is no air to clear, Colonel," he said, and John knew there was more than simple fury behind his words -- there was a world of hurt there and John could actually feel it. "You said what you had to say more than two years ago. The fact that you've let those years pass without even attempting to--"

"Radek's leaving." Rodney frowned but at least he stopped talking. "He's getting married."

"Bully for him. I'll send him a toaster."

"We want you to come back, come back to Atlantis and lead the science division again."

"Not going to happen." 

"Rodney..."

"Not going to happen, Colonel." Rodney looked almost sick. "Why would you want me back? Have you suddenly decided to trust me again? To put up with my _murderous arrogance_ again?"

John sighed. "Look, about that. In the first place, Brown's death had nothing to do with you. It wasn't your fault. And in the second place--"

"Katie Brown died because I was unable to get the device--"

"It wasn't your fault." They'd been over this and over this, how could Rodney still think he was responsible for Brown's death? "It was an accident, McKay. Just a stupid, useless, unpreventable accident."

"Oh, _that's_ all it was," Rodney said, heavy on the sarcasm. "Just like my blowing up a solar system was just an accident."

"No, that was your fault," John said, still trying to keep his temper. "But nobody died, and--"

"Except Collins."

John clenched his jaw. "Nobody holds you responsible for Collins' death either, McKay."

"Oh, that's lovely to know. You just lost complete faith and trust in me, but killing Collins and Brown, those were just accidents. Nearly destroying us and the Daedalus, those were just accidents, even though I know who was actually responsible." Even after two years Rodney remembered, dug his guilty grave deeper. It really shouldn't be a surprise but his voice was filled with such bitterness and self-loathing it shook John. "Well, knowing that makes it all better then."

That intense bitterness derailed John's frustration and anger. "No, it doesn't," John said, quietly. "But it makes it not your fault. Yeah, your arrogance led to you blowing up Doranda, but no one died because of you, McKay."

"Because you were there to pull me out," Rodney said, glaring at his desk, not at John. "Something you reminded me about every fu--"

"We need to have pizza for dinner," said a voice in the door and they both turned.

"Madison, you're interrupting. Aren't you supposed to be watching your show?"

"I'm saving the rest for after dinner. Which should be pizza."

"It's not pizza night, Maddie."

"But we have company." She looked earnestly at John. "You _are_ staying for dinner, right? Because it's pizza."

"Madison Miller," Rodney said and John's brain stopped at the last name. Miller. "We will discuss this later. And Colonel Sheppard is not staying for dinner."

"But you haveta!" Madison said, turning imploring blue eyes on John. "Please?"

Rodney took a deep breath and when he spoke again, his voice was milder. "Three-M, bring your stuff inside if you're not going to watch your show. Make sure all of it's put away properly, please."

She looked like she was going to argue but Rodney raised his finger and one eyebrow and she turned, the very picture of dejection. John watched her go and felt a sharp pang behind his breastbone. "She's cute."

"She's a menace. But yes, she's very cute. Luckily for her, she takes after her mother."

John couldn't look at Rodney. "Then her mother must be pretty as well as brainy, if she's the same Jean Miller who--"

"Yes. Who, with my help, figured out how to recharge ZedPMs. Which was why the paper had both names on it."

"That... that was a good thing, a really good thing. We've got three of them, now, and we're really making headway against the Wraith and the Replicators."

"What?" John looked up to see Rodney's face showing shock and concern. "Replicators?"

"Yeah. The nanovirus that almost killed you? That was them, their start or something." John paused to swallow, thinking about all the ways they had almost been killed recently. "Radek knows more. It was a close call, but it would have been much worse if we hadn't had those ZPMs."

"Shit." Rodney breathed the word and John took that as a chink in the armor, maybe not for him, but at least for Atlantis. Though John really didn't want to think about Rodney being back in Atlantis and not with John, he would take what he could get. "I didn't know."

"It's all right," John said. "You're not exactly keeping up on stuff." Which made sense if Rodney was... married. With a child, no less. The scant hope John had of convincing Rodney to return to Atlantis shriveled further.

Rodney made a vague noise, but at least he didn't seem as angry at himself and John.

John took a deep breath and examined the grain of the desk before him very carefully as he spoke. "I think there's something I should say, though." He couldn't look up, not and talk too. "I..." He licked his lips, squashing the urge to jump to his feet and run out of the house. "I... said some things, the last time we spoke, and... and..."

Rodney sighed. "Just shut up, Colonel. We both know what you said and how you said it, and we both remember me making an ass of myself, expecting more from you than I should have known you could ever give." 

In shock, John raised his eyes but Rodney wasn't looking at him. "No... I mean..."

"I don't think there's anything else left to say on that front. And I will not return to--"

"I'm done." Madison stood in the doorway again, looking between them. "And it's almost dinner time and I think we should get pizza. You can get it with meat, I won't be mad."

"Madison--"

Anything John or Rodney could have said was derailed by the phone ringing. Rodney glanced at his watch and said something under his breath. He rooted under piles of paper before coming up with a cordless phone. "Yes, hello, Edwards, I know we've got this teleconference, give me one minute... yes. One minute." Rodney covered the mouthpiece of the phone and glared at John and Madison. "I have to take this call. Go sit with Madison and watch her show, it's about your age level anyway. When I'm done you can leave."

Madison walked into the room and took John's hand. "C'mon. We can watch Spongebob and then we'll have pizza for dinner." 

John heard a snort from Rodney as he allowed himself to be led to the other room by Rodney's daughter. Rodney had a daughter. Not his own, surely, she looked to be about five and Rodney had only been gone a bit over two years. And her last name was Miller, the same as the co-author of the paper that had literally saved their lives, so maybe Rodney's wife's daughter. John should have felt relieved, happy that Rodney had fallen in love with someone else, but all he felt was resignation at another missed chance. John was just full of missed chances; it was the story of his life.

"You can sit here," Madison said, pointing to a comfortable-looking sofa. "I'll sit next to you. Do you like Spongebob?"

"I don't even know what that is," he admitted. 

She rolled her eyes and once again, John felt that pang -- she could be Rodney's female clone, right down to his mannerisms. "I know you've been in 'Lantis but Spongebob has been around _forever_ ," she said, confident in her superiority.

Wait a minute... "Where did you say I've been?"

"In 'Lantis. Right? Unca Mer says it's a long, long ways away. And it's scary there. But I'm glad you're here, Unca John."

Growing more confused by the second, John asked, "How do you know who I am? And who is--"

She made a disgusted noise then stood, tugging on his hand again. He stood and allowed himself to be dragged down the hall, away from Rodney's study to what had to be Rodney's bedroom. It was a lot like his room in Atlantis had been, filled with books and computers and dirty clothes. There was a big, fat cat, white with blotches of brown, black and orange, asleep on the messy bed.

"That's Beelz. And there's you. You're Unca John. Unca Mer says your hair is weirder than anything in any galaxy but I don't think it's that bad. It's kinda cute." 

She picked up a framed picture and handed it to him, and John had to sit heavily on the bed. It was him and Rodney and Elizabeth, taken at the Christmas party just before Doranda. John had his arm around Rodney's neck and all three were laughing. They'd gotten pretty loaded at that party, so drunk John barely remembered the picture being taken. And Rodney had a copy? He looked up and saw two other framed photos, both of which also featured John in some way.

The cat stood and stretched, then nosed John's back. "Beelz," Madison said. "Quit it."

"It's okay," John whispered, staring at the picture in his hand. He was becoming more confused by the moment -- nothing added up. There were no female clothes or things in the room, nor had John seen anyone but Rodney and Madison.

"C'mon, I'll show you my room," Madison said, once again tugging his hand. 

John put the picture down and followed his guide to her room, which was next to Rodney's. At first glance, it was a typical girl's room, done in pink with ruffles and bows on the pretty white bed. But looking beneath the surface, John saw things that surprised him. The bookcase had both Sendak and Hawking, L'Engle and Silverstein. There was the Erector Set, a veritable crate of Legos and a microscope that looked quite real and expensive. There were porcelain dolls next to a Visible Woman model and John was pretty sure that was a stuffed representation of a helium atom next to a much-loved stuffed dog. There were star stickers on the ceiling and ballet slippers spilling out of the closet.

"This is a neat room," John said, still pretty much stunned. 

"Thanks! See here? This is my mommy." Madison pulled a wrinkled, creased photo off the mirror mounted to her desk. She handed it to John. "It was before she had me. And this is her with my daddy. See? I was still in mommy's tummy." 

The pictures showed a woman with sandy blonde hair and laughing eyes. Her smile was wide and infectious and made John want to smile along with her. She wasn't pretty in the classical sense, but John could tell she was quite beautiful. The second picture had her beaming at a dark-haired man who was smiling at her, obviously besotted.

So, where was the daddy? For that matter, where was this elusive Jean Miller who, along with Rodney, had saved their butts?

"C'mon, we can go watch Spongebob now." Once again, John let himself be tugged by the little girl who looked and acted so much like Rodney McKay.

* * *

Carol Edwards was a royal bitch on wheels but she was also very smart (not as smart as Rodney, of course), cagey and had a vindictive streak ten miles wide. Rodney knew better than to spar with her on anything when he wasn't up to snuff, but he couldn't put off the call with her and the other docents just because the love of Rodney's cursed life had suddenly returned. It was a struggle, but he managed to be coherent and aware enough to head off her attempt at decimating the budget of his department, yet again. By the time he was finished, he felt emotionally and physically drained.

John Sheppard was sitting in his living room, watching Spongebob Squarepants with Madison. He could hear the ridiculous music, John's jackass bray of a laugh, and Madison's high giggle. Rodney had thought he was finally quit of Atlantis and all it had done and meant to him, but apparently he had pissed off yet another minor deity somewhere because there Sheppard sat, in Rodney's living room, laughing with Rodney's niece.

Rodney put his head in his hands for a moment, breathing deeply. He so did not want to deal with this, especially not now. Madison was just settling in, finally, and he felt he was making real progress in the physics department at UT. He'd taken silence from the SGC to mean they were glad to see his ass as he left, and hadn't thought anymore about it. Well, no, that wasn't true, but he'd tried. He'd tried _hard_ , in fact. Not that it seemed to make a difference; Rodney still woke sometimes in the middle of the night listening for the ocean, reaching for someone who wasn't there.

The thing to do would be to throw Sheppard out. Kick him out to the curb, tell him to take his stupid laugh and his ridiculous attractiveness out of Rodney's life, again. For good, this time. 

That was Rodney's plan until he went into the living room.

Sheppard was sitting on the couch with Madison and both were laughing hysterically. On the screen, Rodney heard the annoyingly chirpy voice of the 'main character' of the cartoon saying, "Backing... backing..." over and over and over again, and why that would be considered funny he had no idea. But there they sat, laughing so hard they were almost crying. He leaned on the doorway to the living room, out of their direct sight, crossed his arms and shook his head. Yeah, he figured that cartoon was about Sheppard's emotional level.

He watched them for a while without their knowledge. Sheppard had looked tired in Rodney's study; there were lines on his face that Rodney didn't remember seeing before. His hair was almost flat and that was an absurd barometer of how Sheppard was feeling. Rodney wanted to muss it up. His fingers remembered how soft that mass of hair was and his body remembered Sheppard's touch a little too well. 

And his brain remembered their humiliating last 'conversation.' The argument where Rodney found out just why he was having a hard time regaining Sheppard's trust after Doranda. The time when Rodney made the mistake of blurting out how he really felt about Sheppard, and how Sheppard's face had closed up, hard and unforgiving. Yeah, he remembered that.

He must have made a noise because both juveniles on the sofa turned to him. "Pizza?" Madison said, hope on her face and in her eyes. 

Rodney opened his mouth to say no, it was mac-and-cheese casserole night, that Sheppard wasn't staying for dinner and, in fact, would be leaving within the next nanosecond. What came out of his mouth was, "I'm getting it with pepperoni."

"Okay! As long as we get extra cheese and green peppers too," Madison replied, bouncing in her seat.

Rodney rolled his eyes but pushed away from the wall. "I don't have to stay," Sheppard said, his voice tentative.

"No, you gotta!" Madison turned her imploring look on full-blast and Rodney knew Sheppard was a goner. Stronger men and women than him had crumpled under that onslaught. "Pleeeeease?"

"Give it up, Colonel. You haven't got a chance." Rodney tried to keep his resignation out of his voice, but he wasn't sure how well he succeeded. "Make the call, Three-M. A large with breadsticks and we're having a salad."

Maddie jumped off the sofa and ran to the phone, practically turning cartwheels all the way. Sheppard looked uncomfortable and Rodney thought, good. He should look uncomfortable. At least this time, Rodney was in the position of power, so maybe he'd be able to control the situation better.

Yeah, and while he was dreaming, he'd like to give Maddie that pony she was always whining about.

"I don't want to break up your routine," Sheppard said, standing and awkwardly brushing off his jeans. "You know, to intrude."

"You're not." Except by just being present, by just _breathing_ , Rodney added in his head.

They stood in the living room while Madison made the call to their regular pizza place, staring at anything and everything except each other. Finally, Rodney couldn't stand it. "H-how's everyone? Elizabeth? Teyla?"

Sheppard jumped at the conversational gambit. "Fine. Everyone's okay. Elizabeth actually took some vacation time couple of months ago. Carson broke up with Cadman, though. Radek is marrying Kusanagi. Teyla sends her love."

Rodney snorted; he rather doubted the last, though stranger things had happened. "Well. So the proof was helpful, then. I'm glad."

"It saved our lives, Rodney," Sheppard said earnestly. "What we wrote in the letter, it was all true."

"The letter?" Rodney blinked. "What letter?"

"You didn't get the letter? After Carter came out with the proof to--"

"Pizza! Pizza! Pizza party time!" Madison came out of the kitchen singing at the top of her voice.

"Madison." Rodney had really worked at that tone, not that it had ever really succeeded.

And it didn't work this time either. "Pizza! Pizza! Unca John, I gots more Spongebob on TiVO, you wanna watch some more with me?"

"Madison." It would figure that even a five year old would be bowled over by Sheppard's charm. "No more TV. Read a book."

"But--"

"Madison. We've been over this. No more TV."

She gave him a shrewd look, managing to look so much like her mother that Rodney could barely breathe. "Can I pick the book?"

"Yes." Which might be a mistake, but what the hell. Rodney was really off his game and Madison, like Edwards, always seemed to find the chinks in his armor. The difference was that he despised Edwards but loved Madison with a passion and fear that sometimes startled him.

Madison ran down the hall to get a book and Sheppard's eyes followed her. "You didn't get our letter."

"I... no. I guess I didn't." He frowned at Sheppard. "What did it say? And where did you send it that I didn't get it?"

Madison came skipping back down the hall with a Judy Blume book in her hands. Rodney rolled his eyes -- could have been worse. She had developed a thing for _The Babysitter's Club_ for a while and Rodney wanted to eat his socks over it. "Come on, the pizza will be here soon and I need to clean off the table in the kitchen and make the salad."

Though he'd never admit it, he was glad for the pizza. He didn't know if he could have actually cooked (not that he really did, it all came from boxes mostly) after the double punch of Sheppard and Edwards. He did his best to feed Maddie proper foods, a balanced diet, even keep to vegetarian, at least somewhat. Meat was important and he didn't care what Kaleb had believed.

"It's weird, you know," Sheppard said, leaning against the counter and looking around the kitchen with an approving air, "seeing you with a kid."

"Well, it wasn't as if I had much of a choice," Rodney muttered, putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher and getting out the bag of salad. He should probably put it in a bowl with some other vegetables, especially since that cucumber looked like it didn't have another day left in it. "All I've got is French and raspberry vinaigrette for dressing," he said to Sheppard, who was frowning and looked puzzled.

"Oh, French is fine, what do you mean about not much choice? And... where's your, uh, wife?"

Rodney stopped and gave Sheppard an incredulous look. "My what?"

"Madison's mom..." Sheppard looked completely lost now. "Jean Miller? I thought--"

No matter how much Rodney wanted to mock Sheppard, he couldn't, because the guy didn't know and the pain was too fresh still for Rodney. "Jean Miller was my sister. Madison is my niece."

Sheppard gaped at him. "Oh. Sister?" For some reason he looked relieved, almost pleased. "Wait, was?"

"Yes. She and her husband, Kaleb, they died. Not quite a year ago." Eight months, nine days and a couple of hours. "Car accident."

"God. I'm... I'm sorry, Rodney." At least he looked sincere, and Rodney gave him points for that. "I didn't know."

"You couldn't have." Rodney ripped the bag open with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary and dumped the salad into a big bowl. "Here," he said, handing Sheppard a knife and the cucumber. "Wash your hands and make yourself useful. Cutting board is over there."

Sheppard did as he was told -- he was pretty good about that, most of the time -- and cut up the cucumber as Rodney finished tidying the kitchen and setting out plates for dinner. After a few moments, he said, "The letter. You didn't get our letter of thanks, then, did you?"

"As I said earlier, no. I didn't get any letter."

"We sent it through channels, maybe that's why." Sheppard made a frustrated noise. "Carter brought your work out to Atlantis, on the Daedalus. She told us it riffed off... off the stuff you'd been working on, on Doranda."

"Yeah." Rodney closed the door to the dishwasher with perhaps a bit too much force. "Jeannie and I got to talking about it." Crying about it, more like, Rodney doing the crying and Jeannie, as usual, doing the thwapping. She had hit him upside the head enough that some brain cells had been knocked loose, giving him the proper answer. "She had a couple of good insights." More like a thousand good insights, but who was counting? When your sister can save your heart and your mind, you don't get nitpicky. 

"Well, it worked, and it meant that we had the power to run both the shield and the cloak, the next time the Wraith came calling. And those damn Replicators, we were able to keep them off too."

"Christ. Replicators." Rodney shuddered. Reading about them was scary enough. "Glad I missed that."

"Wish I had," Sheppard muttered. "We -- I mean, me, Elizabeth, Carson, Radek, Teyla, Caldwell, a few others -- we got together and composed a letter to you. Thanking you. Trying to let you know... you could -- we wanted you to come back." Rodney stopped what he was doing and straightened, thankful he had his back to Sheppard. "You still can, you know. Come back. I... we all... we miss you."

"I--" Rodney's response was short-circuited by Madison's shrill voice.

"You _can't_!" she gasped, standing in the door of the kitchen. Her little face was white and her eyes were like saucers. "You _can't_ go back! The Wraith'll eat you! Unca Mer, you... you..."

The tiles were hard on Rodney's knees but he barely felt the pain as he collected Madison into his arms. "No, baby, I'm not going anywhere, not without you, and not back to Atlantis, I won't ever leave you," he babbled, holding her tightly against his shoulder, feeling her little body shudder and heave. "I swear, Madison, I swear..."

"Jesus," he heard Sheppard swear softly, then he was on his knees next to the two of them. "Madison, I'm sorry, I didn't know... I don't want you to think..."

"Unca John," Madison wailed, burrowing deeper into Rodney's embrace. "You can't take him, please! I know he misses you and loves you but you can't take him... take..." she began to hiccup as the trembling got stronger.

Rodney gave Sheppard a glare but found it returned tenfold. "You told her about the _Wraith_?" Sheppard mouthed, not speaking out loud. And Rodney couldn't say anything back, because yeah, that had been a mistake on his part. A monumental mistake, rivaled only by what happened on Doranda.

"Maddie. Three-M, listen to me." Rodney rubbed her back soothingly. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? You know I always keep my promises, Maddie, I'll never leave you. I promise." Slowly the trembling eased and Rodney could have kicked himself to the west coast and back that he'd let her hear what he and Sheppard had been talking about.

There was a knock on the door and Maddie startled. Sheppard got to his feet. "I'll get it," he said, looking distressed.

Rodney managed to get to his feet and onto a chair, pulling Madison onto his lap. She still had a death grip on his shirt, and he remembered, all too well, the dress shirt she had ruined while sitting on his lap at her parents' funeral. He hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry, Maddie, Uncle John and I were just talking. It didn't mean anything."

She was calming, slowly. "But I know you wanna go back," she said in a tiny voice.

Sometimes it scared Rodney how well Madison knew him. "Well, yes, there are times when I do," he acknowledged. He'd made a vow to himself and to Jeannie's spirit: he'd never lie to Madison and never, ever break any promises he made to her. "But you're much more important than anything else, Three-M. You're the most important thing in my life. I would never do something that might hurt you. You have to know that." He gently tipped her head away from his breastbone so he could see her face. It was streaked with tears and he thumbed them away. "Remember, Elmer? We're stuck together now, you and me."

She smiled but ducked her head. "Stuck like glue," she whispered.

He took a deep breath and gave her one more strong hug. "Yep. You and me. Well, and the pizza I smell coming." Finally her hands, still wound around his t-shirt, loosened. "Ready to eat some?"

"Okay," she breathed. Before she got down from his lap, though, she wrapped her little arms around his body, squeezing hard for just a moment. "Love you, Unca Mer," she murmured, and Rodney had to close his eyes, had to fight to keep the smile on his face. There were times when she was a huge burden and times when he wondered how he'd ever managed without her in his life and times when the two were simultaneous. 

"Love you too, Three-M. Now we've got to eat. And yes, you're getting salad but you'll have to fight Uncle John for the French dressing."

Sheppard was at the door to the kitchen, bearing the pizza box and the breadsticks box and looking like he'd been hit by a truck. "Where should I...?"

"Over on the counter. We'll start with salad."

Dinner went a long way towards calming Madison. By the time she'd eaten her salad and customary two and a half pieces of pizza (only pulling off half the pepperoni but Rodney said nothing), she was smiling and chattering again. Rodney could see the shadows on her face, though, and mentally smacked himself. It had taken a lot of work on Rodney's part to get Madison to the point where she was halfway normal and damn Sheppard, anyway, for providing such a setback. 

At least Sheppard was quiet. He ate pizza, salad and breadsticks, listened to Rodney and Madison and laughed in all the right places, but didn't mention Atlantis or anyone attached to it. After dinner and dishes, they had their usual argument about bath time, and Rodney let her win and not have to wash her hair. The truth was he had no idea what to do with a little girl's hair and most of the time ended up taking her to a salon that catered to kids to get the snarls just cut off. Then he let her have another half-hour of TV (mentally apologizing to Jeannie) and it was bedtime.

"Unca John, will you read to me?" Maddie asked, at her most winsome.

Sheppard looked a little trapped but Rodney was not inclined to help him. "Uh, okay, I guess," Sheppard replied, giving Rodney a panicked look. Rodney just raised an eyebrow in reply and let Madison lead Sheppard down the hall.

Forty-five minutes later, Sheppard found Rodney in the kitchen, paying bills. "What'd she force you to read?"

" _Godel, Escher, Bach_ ," Sheppard replied, resembling a stunned bunny. "Chapter seven. I don't even know what a _koan_ is, Rodney."

Rodney snorted. "Just wait until the next chapter. You're going to love typographical number theory."

Sheppard collapsed heavily on a kitchen chair. " _How_ old is she?"

"She'll be six in a few weeks." He signed the last check and pushed the mass away from him with a sigh. "She's a _savant_."

Sheppard frowned. "You mean, like an idio-"

"No, she's not autistic. She reads at the fifth grade level... well, officially. You just read her something most of my students, even my graduate students, couldn't comprehend. And her math..." Rodney rubbed his eyes, actually glad to have someone to talk to about Madison. "It started a few months after I got here. She was in preschool, some private thing. Jeannie called me up, in a snit." He stood and got the coffee down. "I'm going to make some coffee. You want some?"

"Sure," Sheppard replied, slouching in his chair. "Unless you've got a beer?"

"No, sorry. I buy it and it sits because I forget to drink it." Rodney busied himself with filters and such.  "Anyway. The 'teachers' at the so-called 'school' were trying to tell Jeannie that her daughter was learning disabled or something, that she couldn't count. I happened to know she could count -- and read -- better than any other kid in that place. But they were playing hide-and-seek, you know, where they try to teach counting through games or some such garbage. Madison was 'cheating' and refused to count properly."

"What? How?" Sheppard asked, frowning.

"She was supposed to count to ten, so she was. One - ten. They thought she was skipping all the other numbers, cheating or something." Rodney poured water into the coffee maker and then took his seat again. "So while Jeannie and Kaleb were yelling at the teachers, I took Madison aside and asked her to count for me, the way she had been, up to a hundred." He looked up finally, met Sheppard's gaze and wondered if his awe and pride and terror were showing on his face. "She was counting in binary. Said it was faster that way."

Sheppard blinked. "She was _what_?"

"Yeah, that was my thought. So I asked her if she could think of a way to do the same, only in fives. Took her about three seconds before she was counting in base five. She couldn't get base twelve until I gave her the 'special numbers' for ten and eleven."

"Jesus fuck," Sheppard breathed.

"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. She has perfect recall, an almost photographic memory and I think she's able to 'see' in four dimensions or maybe more, because she certainly understands the idea of it. Hell, she could be telepathic, for all I know."

The coffee was almost ready before Sheppard spoke again. "So, what happened?"

"What happened was Jeannie and Kaleb took her out of that pit and found a Montessori school that was willing to take a child genius, at least for a year. I helped them pay for it. But there's no place in the world that's really ready for her and I have no idea what to do now. As it is, she's probably going to need therapy for the loss of her mom and dad, though she's getting along better now than it was a few months ago. She still has night-terrors with distressing frequency. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing and wish I did."

"It's going to be hard, yeah," Sheppard said. Rodney poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to Sheppard; black, just the way he always drank it. "Thanks. But if she's almost six, then--"

"School. Yes. I know. And halfway through her Montessori term, my sister and brother-in-law had a highly inconvenient run-in with a goddamned drunk driver." On autopilot, Rodney fixed his coffee and took a sip. He was still bitter about that asshole, driving with a revoked license, so drunk he didn't even remember the accident, from which he walked away with hardly a scratch.

"It sounds like you're going to have problems finding her a proper learning environment," Sheppard said and Rodney snorted.

"Now you sound like Heightmeyer. I have no idea what I'm going to do, especially since my new term starts next week and school starts a week and a half after that. I've already had it out with the Toronto public school system and they've finally agreed they can't really help her. How can I put her in first grade when she could show up half my graduate students?"

"She's got to be socialized, Rodney, and yeah, I know how that sounds." Sheppard half-smiled but his eyes were sympathetic. "I saw L'Engle in her room, you need to read about--"

"Charles Wallace, yeah, we have." Rodney scrubbed his face with his hands. "What it comes down to is I don't know if I can do this," he finally whispered, speaking into his coffee mug. "She needs her mom and dad and I'm a pretty damn piss-poor substitute."

Sheppard sighed. "I don't know about that," he said. "She's loved. She knows you love her. That's half the battle right there." He sounded so bitter and sad that Rodney's gaze came up.

"You never talk about your childhood," he said, frowning, turning the puzzle that was John Sheppard around in his head again.

"Good reason," Sheppard replied. "Trust me on this one, okay? Make sure she knows how much you love her, and the rest will fall into place. Eventually."

Rodney had never been sure of that, but he was tired and it had been a rough day. A big part of the reason why his day sucked was sitting across from him, drinking his best coffee. "Why the hell are you here?" he asked again, this time quietly and sincerely.

Sheppard sighed again. "I..." He took a gulp of his coffee and Rodney shook his head -- some things never change. "I missed you." He couldn't look at Rodney, but at least he was talking. Quietly, but talking. Rodney had an idea how hard it was for him. "I said some things to you that I shouldn't have. I was... I was scared. And I let that... fear... do the talking for me."

What the hell could Rodney say to that? "I... I don't know if I can ever..." He fumbled to a stop but managed to get going again after another sip of coffee. "There are things... I can't..." Because there are some things that just aren't really forgivable, not even in the long run.

Sheppard seemed to realize that. He nodded slightly but didn't take his gaze off his coffee. "Yeah. I know. But it's been so damned quiet around Atlantis without you, and Elizabeth was pushing me to take some time off. We needed to get another charged ZPM to Earth, so I volunteered to courier it out on the Daedalus and then thought to, you know, look you up. Come see you." 

They were quiet for a long time, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Beelzebub wandered into the kitchen and sat at Rodney's feet, begging for a treat and a skritch, but Rodney ignored her, not knowing what else to say, what else to do. When he finally spoke, it was softly. "I won't leave Madison," he said, and looked up the same time Sheppard did.

"I know." Sheppard smiled crookedly. "She's a great kid, Rodney. You're doing a good job with her. Even though I can't believe you told her about the _Wraith_ , for God's sake."

Rodney shook his head. "Case in point. Despite what you may think, I'm not a very good parent. Obviously. Jeannie was furious with me when she found out about that. Maddie had nightmares for a week." Rodney sighed. "There's something else you should know about her," he said, reluctantly. He took a big breath before he continued. "She's got the gene."

Sheppard's jaw dropped. "Holy crap," he murmured.

"Yeah," Rodney agreed.

* * *

John wanted so badly to tell Rodney everything he'd been thinking for the past two years, about how lonely it was without someone there to complain to, to talk to. About how everything ran so smoothly and was almost boringly predictable. Atlantis wasn't the same without Rodney and neither was John. The fact that it was mostly John's fault that Rodney had disappeared he acknowledged with extreme regret and twenty-twenty hindsight. The most he'd hoped for was that Rodney would forgive him.

But Rodney's niece called him 'Uncle John' and it was at Rodney's instigation. John tried to keep down the bubble of hope that gave him, but it kept popping up, making him smile.

They talked long into the night, about everything and everyone. John got him caught up on all the gossip, who was doing who and the systems that had come online since the ZPMs had been recharged. They had _parks_ in Atlantis, now, and Elizabeth had even brought her dog out. While no one was pregnant -- yet -- everyone acknowledged it was only a matter of time. The Wraith were still a threat but that threat was dwindling every day, as much from their work as from the Wraith's own in-fighting.

And Rodney had talked about the pleasures (few) and pains (many) of being a single parent, of a genius, no less. He was literally the only one capable of taking care of Madison -- Kaleb's father was dead and his mother was in an institution with Alzheimer's. His one sister was contemplating her navel at some ashram in India. Rodney had no other siblings and while his mother was still alive, he said he wasn't about to risk her screwing up another generation of McKays. John hadn't known about that resentment, though it made sense.

John had questioned how Rodney knew Madison had the gene and Rodney reluctantly admitted he'd brought home some small Ancient tech devices for his personal use. Madison had found one on Rodney's desk one day and it lit up for her, brighter than it ever had for Rodney. 

Finally John couldn't stop yawning. "I need to go, gotta find a place to stay. Any motels around here?"

Rodney sighed heavily and stood, taking both empty mugs to the sink. "Bring your stuff in, you can stay here. The sofa pulls out." 

"Rodney, I don't..." But he did, John wanted to stay badly.

"Don't worry about it. You'll get woken up at the crack of dawn, though, so be ready for it. Madison gets to watch two hours of television on Fridays, I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

Shoving down his eagerness, John gave in and went out to get his duffel. Rodney pulled the sofa bed out while he was outside and piled sheets and pillows on it then showed John the bathroom. They stood awkwardly in the hall, outside Rodney's bedroom, for a long moment, and Rodney looked pretty much as uncomfortable as John felt. 

"Thanks," John said, looking down. "For letting me stay, I really don't want to put you out. And don't worry, I can find a hotel in the morning, I mean, assuming I can stick around for a few days, you know, and visit if you want me to..."

"Wow, is that what I sound like when I babble?" Rodney asked, in the same old snide voice, the one John couldn't believe he'd been missing.

John grinned. "Yeah. Only you do it faster. You sure this is okay?"

"I'm sure, already. Go to sleep, Colonel. Madison knows better than to wake me up at the crack of dawn, but she won't have any problems waking you up." Rodney looked like he was going to say something else, but instead, he closed his mouth with a snap and went into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

The sleeper sofa wasn't all that comfortable but John had had worse. And Rodney hadn't been kidding -- at six-thirty, Madison pounced on him with a yell. "Unca John!"

Glad he'd decided to wear sweatpants and a t-shirt to bed, John managed to keep from overreacting by a hair and instead began a tickle attack. Madison was a totally neat kid, at times all little girl and at others, wise and smart beyond her years. She introduced him to different cartoons that morning, amazing him with her perfect insights into what facet of childhood each was geared towards -- all he could hear in her explanations was Rodney, which made sense, he supposed. After about an hour, they decided to make breakfast. 

"I'm not 'lowed to do anything but make coffee and cereal," she told John as they headed into the kitchen.

"Well, why don't you make coffee for the coffee fiend, and I'll get food started. What'll it be?"

"Cimonim French toast!" Madison crowed and John laughed. 

By the time Rodney woke up, they had made a mess of the kitchen but both coffee and French toast (with cinnamon) had been made. Rodney stood in the doorway of the kitchen, taking in the chaos and blinking in what looked like disgust. "I am not cleaning this mess up," he announced before making a beeline for the coffee.

John and Madison laughed. "I'll take care of it," John said, reaching over and wiping a dribble of syrup off Madison's chin. "We left four pieces for you."

Rodney grunted and began gulping his coffee, making all those weird, happy little noises John remembered him making from years before. Rodney stood at the counter with his cup, dressed in his old, ratty blue bathrobe, his hair standing up in little clumps and John had to look away. It was one thing to think he'd made a massive mistake two years ago, it was another to realize it right down to his toes. He was an asshole, and incredibly stupid for pushing away the best thing in his life. Nothing new there, John, he thought viciously to himself, just another normal fuck-up.

"Madison," Rodney said, and John looked back up to see Madison staring at him, a puzzled expression on her face. "You need your vitamins then you need to get dressed. I've got to drop you at Mrs. Hutchins by ten."

Her face fell. "Do I haveta?" she asked, or more precisely, whined. "Can't I come with you?"

"Not this time, Madison. I've got four meetings and Colette threatened to leave if I asked her to watch you again. Sorry, Three-M."

"You need to go to work?" John asked, perking up with a sense of recklessness. "I could stay, maybe Madison and I could do something together?"

"Yeah!" Madison leapt from her chair and ran to Rodney, grabbing him around his legs. "Unca John! Please, Unca Mer? We could go to the Science Center!"

Rodney was looking at John with the strangest expression on his face -- some kind of combination of surprise, consternation and disbelief. "Do you actually know what you've just volunteered to do? This child has made grown women, women who have raised half a dozen _boys_ , weep."

Madison made a face. "Mrs. Lovitte was a weenie. She didn't even know what a computer was."

Rodney glared at his niece. "We have spoken before about manners, Madison," he said and John nearly snorted coffee out his nose. Rodney turned the glare on him. "I will not raise this child to treat others they way I treat them," he said, but John could swear there was a laugh hidden somewhere in Rodney's eyes. 

"I should hope not," John said, trying and failing to keep his grin in. "It's no biggie, McKay. I've got a rental; give me a map and point me in the right direction. What is this 'Science Center' anyway?"

Madison shrieked with glee and ran out of the kitchen to her bedroom. While Rodney ate, he gave John a map of Toronto and pointed out the various sights to see. The Ontario Science Center, it turned out, was literally just down the road and the McKay-Miller family had full memberships, thanks to Rodney holding the chair in physics at the University of Toronto.

"Why here, McKay?" John asked as he began to clean up. "You could have gone anywhere, MIT, Oxford..."

"I'll have you know that UT is in the top twenty universities in the northern hemisphere," Rodney shot back, scowling. "And under my patronage, the physics department is becoming world-class, too. Don't diss my school."

John gave Rodney an incredulous look and laughed. "Okay, okay. I won't diss the school."

It was a beautiful, sunny, late-summer hot day in Toronto. John drove them to the Science Center where it turned out everyone on the staff knew Madison. She was even given back-stage privileges for some of the exhibits and spent almost an hour discussing cosmology with two of the center's workers, defending the recent decision to 'downgrade' Pluto to a dwarf planet. The discussion grew heated at one point but John was too completely floored to intervene. Plus Madison didn't seem to have any problems holding her own -- she was definitely Rodney's niece.

At lunch, which they ate on the terrace of the center, she peppered him with questions about everything -- flying, wormholes, black holes, subspace, whether he liked the rental car he'd been given, what it was like to walk through the stargate, and whether he would take her to Toys R Us to get a new Barbie doll and tutu. "I gots ballet on Saturdays," she explained. "Unca Mer doesn't like to take me but all my friends are there."

"I see," John said, his brain still reeling, finally understanding Rodney's warning. "And since I understand you've got a birthday coming up, I don't see why we couldn't go do some pre-shopping shopping. What are you going to do for your birthday?"

She blinked at him, her expression blank. "My birthday?"

"Yeah, where are you going to have your birthday party? Are there Chuck E. Cheeses in Toronto?"

"Birthday party?" She acted like she didn't know what he meant. "I dunno."

"Don't you want your friends to come over and sing you happy birthday songs? Have a cake and try to burn the house down?" John was beginning to feel alarmed, wondering whether Rodney had even given thought to the situation.

Madison shrugged and finished her ice cream. "Can we go back inside? Is it time for the Imax movie?"

It was time, but John filed the information back in his brain for discussion that evening with Rodney.

* * *

"I can't believe you bought her a _Barbie_ ," Rodney said when they returned home. "A _Barbie doll_ for God's sake?"

"Hey, it's okay, it's a smart Barbie," Sheppard said defensively. "She's a, you know, a scientist. A vet, I think."

"Oh, that makes it all okay then," Rodney snapped, all prickly sarcasm. He couldn't believe Sheppard sometimes. "An anatomically impossible veterinarian."

"Oh, c'mon, Rodney, didn't you ever have a crush on Barbie when you were a kid?"

"No!" Madison had already removed the doll from its voluminous, rainforest decimating, greenhouse inducing wrappings and was in her room, allegedly playing with it. "You couldn't have gotten something useful, something that would expand her mind?"

"Trust me, that kid needs no more mind expanding. She argued with some wonk at the Science Center for close to an hour about dwarf planets and expanding universe cosmology." Sheppard shook his head, but Rodney could see the awe from where he stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Sheppard was slouched in a chair at the table. "And she _won_."

"Who was it, Patterson? That jerk makes Kavanagh look like a genius."

"Yeah, I think that was the name. Oh, and she had no idea what she was going to do for her birthday. Haven't you made any plans yet?"

"For her birthday?" Rodney frowned at Sheppard. "What are you talking about?"

Sheppard made a disgusted noise. "Her birthday, Rodney. You said she turns six in a few weeks. Six-year-olds need birthday parties, with other sugar-hyper kids and stupid games for cheap plastic toys. Do they have Chuck E. Cheeses in Toronto?"

Rodney made a face. "Oh please. I refuse to set foot in that horrific place. My niece doesn't need to visit with morons dressed in huge plastic heads for her birthday. And those so-called 'ball pits' are nothing but breeding grounds for super-germs." Rodney shuddered.

"Then a party here. We can invite some of her friends and have cake and stuff. Pin the tail on the donkey." Sheppard actually bounced in his chair and Rodney had to turn away. Why was he allowing Sheppard to come back into his heart? It could only end badly. 

"A birthday party."

"Yeah! Hey, is six too young for a sleepover? Who does she have playdates with?"

"Playdates?" When had Rodney lost control of the conversation?

"Yeah, you know, other kids to play with. Hey, she told me she's got ballet tomorrow. She's friends with the kids there? How about the kids she was with in the Montessori school?"

Rodney gaped at Sheppard, blinking. " _What_ are you talking about?" he said, and Sheppard frowned at him. 

"Rodney, she's going to be six."

"You think I don't know that?" 

"She needs a birthday party." Sheppard was speaking slowly and clearly, as if Rodney were a biologist, for God's sake. "C'mon, even you had to have had birthday parties."

"Of course I did," Rodney said, when what he was thinking was, you're going to be here that long? Will you be here longer? Will you stay forever? "I just don't know... I mean..." he sighed. "I have no idea what I'm doing here, Colonel. Can't you tell that?"

"Then let me help!" Sheppard looked like he wanted to leap out to the store to buy party hats and favors. Then he paused, his face registering uncertainty. "I mean... if you don't mind... if you want me to...?" 

Rodney was saved having to reply by Madison appearing in the kitchen. "What's for dinner? I'm hungry."

And that was the capper, as far as Rodney was concerned. He not only had forgotten dinner, he'd forgotten he was supposed to make it in the first place. "Oh, damn. I..."

"Let's go out to eat, my treat," Sheppard said. "Not pizza," he added, when Madison had her mouth open. Her face fell and Rodney suddenly realized Sheppard had been around long enough to figure out what she was going to say. The idea terrified him for some reason: how could just a day and a half be long enough for Sheppard to figure her out when Rodney was still in the process of doing it? 

"Pickle Barrel?" Madison said hopefully, looking at Rodney.

Unable to think of a coherent reason to say no, Rodney found himself agreeing, then driving the three of them to the local Pickle Barrel for dinner. Madison and Sheppard talked the entire way there, telling Rodney what they'd done during the day and all about the Imax movie they'd seen. There was a wait to be seated but it wasn't long, and Rodney was so bemused he didn't even remember giving the server his order. 

He was falling, he realized. Falling back into what he'd had in Atlantis, and he didn't know if he would be able to survive it again. Eventually, Sheppard would have to return, he'd have to go back to Atlantis and Rodney would be unable to follow, tied by commitments to school and family. There was no way he'd leave Madison and there was no way Sheppard would want to stay on Earth. He knew how much Sheppard loved Atlantis -- almost as much as Rodney had. Did. Still.

Rodney was so wrapped up in his little freak-out that he didn't notice Madison, not until Sheppard nudged his arm. "Rodney. What...?"

Madison was sitting in her booster seat, folding her napkin into intricate shapes, completely oblivious to any outside stimuli. Her little face was utterly blank and Rodney felt his stomach fall, just like it always did when she disappeared that way.

"It's okay," he murmured to Sheppard, though he didn't take his eyes off her. "She does this, every now and then. She's thinking, trying to figure something out, out of our world entirely."

Rodney's voice must have been shakier than he'd thought, because Sheppard gave him a sharp look. "She's done this before?"

"Yeah. Not often, though," Rodney replied, still keeping his voice low. "She's so far beyond anyone, even me; it's like her brain goes someplace else and shows her things. She'll snap out of it in a minute or so, and come up with a question I won't be able to answer."

"You're kidding?" Sheppard asked and the look he gave Rodney was a combination of horror and awe. 

"No. I wouldn't kid about this." It terrifies me, he added in his head, as usual wondering what would happen if she didn't snap out of it quickly. He couldn't follow her in those fugues and that bothered him more than he liked to think about. If he couldn't follow her, he couldn't keep her safe.

After a couple of very long minutes, Madison looked up. "Unca Mer?"

"Yes?" Rodney was so used to these zone-outs that he had managed to perfect a tone of nonchalance, though it appeared he wasn't fooling Sheppard.

"If space is non-clidian, how come there's only four 'mensions?" 

"Non-Euclidian," Rodney corrected. "And what makes you think there are only four?"

"Well, that's what the books say," she replied, in a reasonable voice. "But I think they're wrong." 

Rodney swallowed. "Can you prove it?"

"I think so," she said, looking down at the fabric of her napkin. "And if subspace is under real space, then why can't it be folded too? We should be able to fold it, like wormy-holes do real space."

"Nobody knows how to fold it, Three-M." He couldn't look at Sheppard and maintain his easy, calm facade. "Do you want me to show you the equations on non-Euclidian structure when we get home?"

"Uh-huh," she said, grabbing the last breadstick from the basket. "Beat you, Unca John! And I wanna see the 'quations on subspace too. Oh, and the book you gave me on 'rithmetic mean has a boo-boo in it."

"It does?" She nodded hard and the server brought their salads. "Did you mark it? I'll have to write to the guy that wrote it."

"Yup! I did," she said, picking up her fork and diving in. 

Rodney hazarded a glance at Sheppard who was looking pale and spooked. Rodney nodded once and started on his own salad. He knew how Sheppard felt because he felt like that too, every single time she did it. 

The rest of dinner was normal. Madison inhaled her child's portion of chicken fingers while chattering about ballet class, asking if Sheppard could take her and Sheppard agreeing to do so. On the one hand, it was good because it would allow Rodney to get the shopping done without drama, but on the other, it was bad -- he was really getting nervous about letting Sheppard into their lives. Into Rodney's life. What would happen when he left?

Sheppard also talked to Madison about a birthday party, suggesting a variety of activities until Madison warmed up to the idea enough to become enthusiastic. "Could I 'vite Shannon? And Chrisobel?"

"Well, we'll talk about that tomorrow," Rodney temporized. He thought those were girls from her ballet class -- ballet, what a completely useless undertaking for a child who could understand non-Euclidian space-time! -- but wasn't sure. Apparently, he was going to have to discuss the whole thing with Sheppard.

The evening went easy as Madison was pretty worn out from the day's events. She watched some cartoons with Sheppard, took a bath and agreed to wash her hair -- something Rodney had to help her with -- and didn't even insist on a difficult book at bedtime. Instead, she settled on a perennial favorite, _The Stinky Cheese Man_ , a book Rodney knew Sheppard would love.

Rodney put a pot of coffee on and took the bottle of Macallan down from its cupboard -- he had a feeling Sheppard would want to join him, and he was right. Once Madison was asleep (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), Sheppard slumped in the same chair as he had last night. "Jesus, Rodney," he said, nodding gratefully when Rodney held the whiskey up with the coffeepot. "What happened tonight... that happens a lot?"

"Not a lot..." Rodney said, pouring a hefty dollop in both their cups. "But enough."

They both sipped. The whiskey burned a delicious path down Rodney's throat, helping to calm him.

"You know, I was thinking," Sheppard said slowly, turning his cup in circles. "You said she's a _savant_ and my first thought was idiot-savant. Those are autistic, right?"

"Yeah."

"I've never seen one, but from the descriptions, it's like they don't respond properly to outside stimuli. Right?"

Rodney frowned; he had a good idea where this was heading. "To a degree. It's usually mathematics, but not always, sometimes it's music -- I need to buy a piano and get her started on music theory, I think. Anyway, sometimes they can't communicate in any other way."

"What I saw her do tonight..."

"Yeah. I know." He looked up at Sheppard, needing to admit his terror, praying it wouldn't drive Sheppard away. "What if she doesn't come back? I can't follow her, John, not there. Where she's at... " Rodney felt the familiar panic rise and took another hefty swig of his doctored coffee to head it off. "She's light years ahead of anyone else on the planet, even me. Jeannie was an excellent theoretical physicist -- not as good as me, obviously, but definitely as good as, say, Carter -- but Madison... She's in a league of her own. There's nothing in the world even close. Maybe the Asgard, I don't know."

Sheppard looked pretty much like Rodney felt. He took a deep breath and an equally deep drink of his coffee. "I think," he started, speaking slowly, "I think maybe that's where the love comes in. I think she needs you to ground her, to give her a reference point in the universe." He looked up and met Rodney's gaze straight-on. "And she needs to be a kid, too. She needs friends, though I'm not sure if she'll be able to keep them, not if she zones-out like that frequently."

Rodney sighed and rested his head on the table, on his crossed arms. "I don't have a clue here, I'm going to mess her up, just like my parents did me..."

"Hey, no," Sheppard said, reaching across the table and putting his hand on Rodney's shoulder. It burned through the fabric of Rodney's shirt. "I said you're doing fine with her, and I meant it. She's a really cool kid, Rodney. And you're not as messed up as you think you are."

"God, I hope you're right," Rodney muttered. Reluctantly, he sat up, pulling away from Sheppard's hand. "Though I suppose you're the same emotional age as she is, Colonel, so I suspect you're more right about her than you know."

Sheppard grinned. "I just wish I'd had the Cartoon Channel when I was her age," he said. "Listen, I need to find a hotel, get out from underfoot--"

"No." The negation was out before Rodney could censor himself. "Stay. I know the sofa bed isn't--"

"It's fine," Sheppard said. His gaze kept sliding away from Rodney's. "It's just that... Crap. Rodney, you have every right to pitch me out on my ear, after what I said to you two years ago." Sheppard grabbed his mug and in one long gulp, finished his coffee. "It's just that... it's... I _missed_ you. It might take me a while, I know I'm slow, but I'm not completely stupid. I screwed up. I'm... I'm sorry."

Rodney finished his own coffee in order to keep from looking at Sheppard. He had a feeling once he did, it would be game over. He realized how hard it was for Sheppard to admit his feelings, and further knew that he was still in love with the skinny, overly-hirsute jerk. And Madison obviously adored him already -- Rodney hadn't decided yet how he felt about that. 

Taking a deep breath, Rodney forced himself to look up, though he really had no idea what to say. "Maybe..." Sheppard had an excellent poker face, but not this time. Rodney could see he was really going out on a limb, really trying and that, more than anything else, gave him the courage to speak. "Maybe we could... I don't know, start again? Try again?" And maybe you won't stomp all over me and hang me out to dry this time, Rodney thought.

His thought must have shown on his face, because Sheppard gave him a tentative smile. "I can do that," he murmured. "I won't screw up again, Rodney. I swear."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Rodney said automatically.

Sheppard winced. "I'm not."

Rodney nodded. "Okay." He tried to smile though it probably wasn't very realistic. "And if you really want to take Madison to ballet tomorrow, I won't say no. Just be prepared to be bored out of your mind for an hour."

"I can do that," Sheppard replied with a grin. "And if you're positive you don't mind me crashing on the sofa bed, then..."

"It's okay," Rodney said, rolling his eyes. "I said it's okay and it is. I've got some work on the computer to do, if you want first crack at the bathroom."

"Thanks, I'll do that." He stood and stretched and Rodney was hard-pressed not to ogle. It had been a long two years.

An awfully long and lonely two years, in fact. 

* * *

Madison was almost vibrating with excitement by the time they were ready to leave for ballet. From the look on Rodney's face, it was a normal occurrence. John was incredibly amused by the whole thing; by Madison's excitement, by Rodney's disdain, by Madison's desire to wear her dance leotard and new tutu everywhere. The kid might be a genius, but she was also a kid, a little girl with pretty blonde hair and a taste for pink.

Being a 'ballet mom' wasn't nearly so boring as Rodney made it out to be. Shannon's mother was short and plump with red hair and a ready smile. Chrisobel's mother was tall and dark and incredibly beautiful, like a model. Madison had introduced him merely as "Unca John" so John had to explain he was a friend of the family. They exchanged looks and smiled at him.

"Dr. McKay is so overworked, I'm glad he's got help," Shannon's mother -- Allison? Evelyn? -- said.

"Rodney's not exactly a kid oriented person," John said with a grin. "But I think he's doing pretty good with Maddie. She's a genius, you know." He couldn't keep the pride out of his voice.

Chrisobel's mother -- Meritas, he was pretty sure -- laughed. "Yes, we've been told that frequently."

"She stopped class once, said the parabolas weren't exact or something like that," Shannon's mother said with a sigh. "She's such a sweet girl, but I don't envy either of you."

"Yeah, Rodney's already talked about school... he's pretty much in panic mode."

"There's a special school in Mississauga I've heard about," Chrisobel's mother said. "They take special needs kids, both autistic and advanced. You know the one I'm talking about Evey, there was an article about it in the paper the other day."

"Oh! The Phelps School," must-be-Evelyn said. "Yes. It's a private school, of course, but chartered. I'm not sure they'd be able to work with Maddie, but it might be worth a look."

They also proved to be experts on the subject of birthday parties, saying a sleepover would be fine by them, but advising him to keep it small, max four girls. "At that age, their attention span is like a gnat," Meritas said with a laugh. "Movies, pizza, cake, and something to do nails and hair with -- and make sure it's fake! Real nail polish simply doesn't come out of carpeting."

By the time ballet class was over, John had a list of things to do and buy for the birthday sleepover which apparently was going to happen in four weeks. He thought that might be enough time for them to panic over and wondered if Rodney was going to kill him.

Rodney. Who had, most remarkably, forgiven him his idiocy. Stubborn (and stupid) pride had been one of the many things that kept John from running after Rodney two years before. He was most definitely _not_ going to screw it up again -- Teyla would absolutely _kill_ him if he did. But even without that threat, it was just too important, now.

He was a moron, that was self-evident. But he could be trained.

He maintained that opinion until he got back to Rodney's and told him about the Phelps School and the birthday party sleepover. 

Rodney had been testy. "Yes, yes, I know about the Phelps School, do you know what their tuition is? Twenty-five thousand a year! And that's for _not_ staying on campus! That's close to a quarter of what I make every year!"

"Wait, you're the chair of the physics department and you only make--"

"I gave up part of it in order to get immediate tenure," Rodney said with a sigh. Madison was in her room playing, still in her dance leotard; they stood in the kitchen. "I needed to make sure I had a steady income after Jeannie died. And most of my back pay went to buying this house and helping with the Montessori school." He scrubbed his face with his hands. "So, yes, I do know about Phelps, but I don't think I can afford it."

"If that's where she needs to go, then that's where she'll go," John said firmly. "I've got all this back pay burning a hole in my bank account. Let me help."

Rodney dropped his hands and looked at John for a long, scary few minutes. His face showed his worry, his longing. "Why are you here?" he whispered again, looking so lost, so hurt that John couldn't help himself. 

Crossing the few feet between them, John carefully reached out and gently pulled Rodney into his arms. He was ready to let go, ready to step back if Rodney showed the least reluctance, but Rodney didn't. He was stiff for a moment, then relaxed and leaned into John. "Let me help," John said. "Let me..." Let me make up for all the pain I caused, he thought. Let me help you be a parent to Madison, who's already staked a claim on my heart. Let me... "Please."

Rodney didn't say anything, but leaned a little more, let John carry a little more of his burden. John counted it as a victory and closed his eyes in gratitude. 

"A sleepover?" Rodney finally said, his voice incredulous, and John laughed.

"Sure, why not? How hard could it be?"

* * *

They visited the Phelps School on the following Tuesday. It was a huge, sprawling campus where children of all ages attended classes as diverse as speech therapy and advanced music theory, to linear mathematics and how to cook. It was impressive -- the 'advanced' kids helped out with those who were learning disabled or autistic, teaching them more about socialization and helping others than any public school could hope to achieve. Madison met the music teacher and fell in love, instantly -- not only with her, but with the music building itself.

They enrolled her for the next session, which would begin in two and a half weeks. Rodney wanted to talk about repaying Sheppard for his initial outlay of fifteen thousand Canadian dollars, but Sheppard just looked at him. "If I don't spend it on her, I'll just blow it on fast cars and faster airplanes," he said facetiously. "And booze. And floozies. Really, this is better." Rodney rolled his eyes but accepted the help, trying like hell not to think about what was going to happen when Sheppard went back to Atlantis.

Thing was, Sheppard didn't seem to be in any hurry to return. He didn't mention his leave time, didn't make any noises about checking in, and in fact, appeared to be settling in at Rodney's house. Rodney came home that Friday to find a beat-up pickup truck in pieces in his front driveway, both Sheppard and Madison happily covered in grease as they worked on it. Appalled at first, Rodney finally found himself up to his elbows in engine parts as he helped put the thing back together, undoubtedly better than it was before.

When he asked, Sheppard shrugged. "The rental was nibbling me to death with fees. This was a make-an-offer deal and I knew we could fix it up to be good enough. If I need to, I can sell it for more than I bought it." Rodney simply couldn't bring himself to ask about Atlantis and leave. If Sheppard was willing to avoid it, so was he.

One day the following week, Rodney came home to find an old upright piano in the living room. Sheppard at least had the grace to look abashed as Rodney gaped at him. "Well, you said you should get a piano," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "This was one of those lucky things, I saw it in the paper. It was an estate sale -- the most expensive part of it was getting it delivered. It needs to be tuned, pretty badly, but it's serviceable, even I can tell that."

Madison was bouncing up and down in excitement over it. Getting over his initial shock, Rodney dropped his briefcase and suit coat on the floor and sat down on the bench. It had been years, but his hands still knew what to do. Settling his fingers on the keys, Rodney began to play.

Sheppard was right, the piano was badly out of tune. But that was all that was wrong with it; the wood was thin and hard and beautifully seasoned, giving it a bell-like tone. A couple of the hammers might need replacing too, he thought idly as he played the Strauss waltzes he'd always loved, filing his home with the beautiful music. How he'd missed playing -- recordings simply weren't the same. 

When he came back to himself, Madison was cuddled up to his side and Sheppard was leaning on the wall next to the piano, looking almost like he wanted to cry. "Why didn't you ever tell me you could play like that?" he asked, his voice a bare, choked whisper. 

"Unca Mer, I wanna learn how to play the piano," Madison said. Even she was subdued. "It looked like waves when you played, those pretty ones you showed me on the silly-scope. It was really, really pretty."

Rodney swallowed hard and wrapped on arm around Madison. "You'll learn," he said, his voice rough for some reason. He coughed to clear his throat; damn pollution. "We should call a tuner. I think it might need some new hammers, too."

Sheppard just smiled and nodded but his face showed him still lost in the music Rodney had played.

They had something with chicken in it for dinner. Sheppard had been buying food too, and had been experimenting with cooking. Sometimes his experiments blew up but more often they were good and tasty. Madison often lobbied for vegetarian food (her father had been a vegetarian, Rodney explained to Sheppard) and both Rodney and Sheppard gave in more times than not. He absolutely refused to cook or eat anything involving tofu, though.

Later that night, Rodney stood in the hallway just outside Madison's room and listened as Sheppard read her the final chapter of _The Homeward Bounders_. Apparently, Sheppard had a fetish about the author, a Brit named Diana Wynne Jones -- he'd been buying her books in bookstores and off of B &N.com and Amazon for the past week. This was the first one he'd finished. Madison could read them all herself, of course, but preferred Sheppard read them to her.

_"You see how it works, do you? As long as I don't stay anywhere long, as long as I keep moving and don't think of anywhere as Home, I shall act as an anchor to keep all the worlds real. And that will keep Them out."_

Sheppard's voice was soft as he wove the story-teller's spell over Madison. Even little girls reacted to him, wanted him all for themselves, Rodney thought with a snort. Rodney was even beginning to feel jealous -- Sheppard seemed like such a better parent than Rodney could ever hope to be. Madison loved him so much and it would kill her when Sheppard left.

_"If you like, you can all think of it as my gift to you. I never had much else to give. You can get on and play your own lives as you like, while I just keep moving. This story of it all can be another gift."_

Why was Sheppard in Toronto, why was he making himself at home with Rodney's family? He'd said he wouldn't mess it up again, but how could Rodney be assured of that? It wasn't just Rodney's heart that was at stake, now. 

_"And if you read it and don't believe it's real, so much the better. It will make another safeguard against Them._

_"But you wouldn't believe how lonely you get."_

"The end." Rodney heard Sheppard put the book on Madison's nightstand. "Maddie?"

Madison's voice was very small. "Jamie can never go home again?"

"No, baby, he can't. That's his gift to us."

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not." Sheppard sighed. "Life isn't very fair. I think Jamie knows that, and he knows that as long as he's free, as long as he doesn't have a Home, he can cheat that unfairness."

"Like he did to _Them_. He cheated them and beat _Them_." 

"Yeah, he did." 

"But why did time pass in his real Home? Time isn't like that, it's a... a... spiraly thing. A h-he-lix. Why couldn't he just find his right time?"

Sheppard sighed again. "Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to keep _Them_ from coming back and hurting everyone again. There are some people who... who give up things they love, people they love, for what's called the 'greater good,' to keep those people and things safe. They see a need and sometimes know there's only one way of getting that need, so that's what they do."

Rodney's legs wanted to give out; he leaned back against the wall of the hallway and closed his eyes. The tight band across his chest made it hard to breathe.

"I think there should be a way to do both," Madison said firmly. "Do what you need to do _and_ keep your Home. And when I grow up, I'm gonna find that way."

"Are you going to help get Jamie home?"

"Yup! I'm gonna--" Her words were cut short by a massive yawn.

"I bet you will, Maddie. If anyone can do it, you can. But in order to do things like that, you're going to have to sleep."

"Okay," Madison replied with another yawn. 

Rodney heard Sheppard give her a kiss, then he came to the door of her room and gave Rodney a puzzled glance. "You want to kiss Madison goodnight?"

Not trusting his voice, Rodney nodded and walked into the bedroom. Madison was already tucked under the covers and half asleep. "Goodnight, Three-M."

"G'night, Unca Mer," she replied, smiling as he kissed her. He turned out her lamp and left, closing her door behind him. 

Sheppard was still in the hallway, his face scrunched up. "Rodney? You okay?"

Not giving himself time to think, Rodney grabbed two fistfuls of Sheppard's t-shirt -- black, of course, the man had nothing that _wasn't_ black -- shoved him against the wall, and plastered their lips together, hard. Sheppard didn't resist, but he let his mouth open under Rodney's onslaught with a barely there moan. God, it felt good to have that lean body under him again, to taste Sheppard's mouth.

Rodney broke the kiss as suddenly as he'd started it. "I can't do this, I can't have this and let it go again," he muttered, trying hard to keep his voice low, muffled against Sheppard's shoulder. "You can't... it's not just me, now, Colonel, don't you see that?"

Sheppard looked at him for a few moments, then took his arm in one hand and led them to the living room. He pushed Rodney onto the sofa and sat next to him. "I'm not going anywhere." Sheppard scrubbed his face with both hands. "McKay, look, you've got to believe me -- I'm not leaving. I'll stay here, sleeping on your crappy sofa bed for the rest of my life if that's what it takes. What I said the other day... I screwed up, okay? I messed up badly and it took me two fucking years to realize it, but I have. I did."

"I can't let you hurt Madison," Rodney began, but Sheppard stopped him with a shake of his head.

"Rodney, I won't, I can't hurt her. That kid, she's like... she's like inside me, already. I never thought..." he looked away, briefly, breathing like he'd run a marathon. "I never expected to have kids, you know? I'm in the military, was raised a military brat and know how bad that is, and anyway, for the last several years I've been kind of out of circulation. But if I ever had kids, I'd want them to be like Maddie. She's special, Rodney."

"I know," Rodney said, wrapping his arms around himself.

"You let me come in, you let me get to know her, come to care for her. I can't..." He looked away again, biting his lip. "I don't want to be without her, without you. Without both of you. Unless you tell me to get out, I'm not going anywhere. And even if you do tell me to leave, at this point I'll probably end up living in a tent in your backyard," Sheppard finished, his voice rueful. He swallowed hard and managed to bring his head up to look Rodney in the eye. His face carried the weight of his conviction, he let it all be there, let it all show -- his fear, his honesty, his commitment. 

What could Rodney say to all that? "Don't go," he whispered.

"I'm not going, I won't," Sheppard replied, his voice both firm and shaking slightly from his feelings. He reached up with his hands, framing Rodney's face. "I swear it." 

The kiss he gave Rodney was the opposite of Rodney's; gentle, sweet and full of promise. "You said, we could start again, we could start over? Let me, Rodney. Please."

"I never have been able to say no to you," Rodney muttered, and Sheppard pressed their foreheads together.

For the next several nights, they sat on the sofa after Madison had gone to bed and made out like teenagers -- not taking it any farther than that, though it was about to drive both of them insane. But Rodney wanted slow, he wanted to be certain, this time. And Sheppard, it appeared, wanted whatever Rodney wanted.

Rodney would come home from a hard, boring day flunking freshmen in the salt mines of higher education to find Sheppard in the kitchen, fixing dinner while laundry was washing, or in the living room, helping Madison with her Erector Set or outside, playing some weird variant of football with her. Rodney made the mistake of calling Sheppard a demented version of June Cleaver, so Sheppard started calling Rodney Ward. Even Madison got into the act, running through the house yelling she was the beaver.

It was about then that Rodney realized it probably hadn't been a good idea to let Madison in on the joke.

It completely puzzled Rodney why Sheppard would want to be a 'stay at home mom,' especially after Madison started school. There wasn't anything for him to _do_ once he dropped Madison off at school, but he never complained, never was anything other than accommodating to Rodney or Madison.

They found her shy side once she started school. It took some work to get her adjusted. Rodney admitted he was incredibly grateful to Sheppard for just being around, for being able to help Rodney with Madison at this difficult time. He was just there -- he stayed with Madison the entire time of her first few days at Phelps, talked to her teachers, to the administrators, helped set up her curricula. Sheppard admitted how good it felt to be needed in such a way -- just easy and honest work. A pleasant change from having to offer his life rather too frequently for his own peace of mind, he said.

Rodney just decided to avoid looking a gift horse in the mouth.

* * *

Madison had been in the school for a week and a half when her birthday party sleep-over finally happened. John had been increasingly nervous over it and couldn't really figure out why -- it was just four little girls, spending the night in sleeping bags on the living room floor. As he'd said earlier, what could go wrong? They'd already ordered the pizza, had the cake made (a Barbie cake, to Rodney's consternation and John's amusement), decorated the house with streamers and balloons and had a stack of movies ready. What could go wrong?

The girls attending were Chrisobel, Shannon and Leah, the last a friend from the Montessori school Madison had attended. Leah's mother, it turned out, knew Evelyn and was apparently reassured that John and Rodney would be good hosts for a sleepover. Each mom gave them advice as she dropped off her child. Meritas told them not to expect the girls to actually _sleep_ at the party, then laughed at their horrified faces. Karen, Leah's mother, advised them not to give a choice for breakfast in the morning, and told them to make sure the girls got plenty of water and a night-light in the bathroom. Evelyn, though, was the best.

"I hear you've got Madison in Phelps," she said after kissing her daughter and turning her loose on the unsuspecting house. 

"Yes, and thank you for the heads-up on that," John said sincerely. "They're wonderful."

"Good! You do know you're entitled to a tax offset, don't you?" She looked at Rodney who looked back, blankly. "It's a chartered school, and you're in a protected profession -- you're still at U.T., right? You're entitled to an offset of her tuition because you're a resident and teacher." She grinned at Rodney's shock. "My sister is on the school board. I guess you didn't know!"

"No, but I do now!" Rodney said, glaring at John.

"Hey, don't look at me, I'm still a U.S. citizen," John said, throwing up his hands in defense. 

So the evening started on a high note which was good because it went downhill fast after that. John wasn't sure how he ended up on the floor, being used as a test subject for the fake makeup Madison received as a gift from Chrisobel (he was so going to have a talk with Meritas about that), but he felt he should be getting hazard pay for it. Rodney had flatly refused to provide any movies from the 'evil empire of Disney,' which meant a couple of _Rugrats_ movies, _Polar Express_ (wrong time of year but what the hell), and John's lucky find of _Swan Princess_. 

The pizza was gone, the cake was nearly so, everyone had changed into pajamas and spread out sleeping bags and favorite pillows all over the living room and the last bit of _Polar Express_ was playing. John collapsed on the couch next to Rodney and behind the rapt little girls. "I just realized I can't sleep out here tonight, at least not on the sofa bed," John said, in a stage whisper to Rodney. He was still trying to get the purple, sparkly 'nail polish' off his fingernails. Luckily the eyeliner and blush wiped off pretty well. He'd still have to shower to get the rest of the glittery stuff out of his hair.

Rodney had his arms crossed over his chest and was nearly glaring at the TV. "I can't believe they called this crap 'lifelike.' And you can sleep in my room. It's not like either of us will sleep tonight, is it?"

"You sure?" John said, after a pause. "It won't seem..."

"It's not like they don't already think we're fu-- together." Rodney looked at John from the corner of his eye. "You do know that, don't you?"

"Uh..."

The movie ended and Rodney stood. "Okay, everyone, movie's over, it's time to sleep." The automatic denial was peppered with yawns that gave John hope they might actually get some amount of shut-eye. 

Three-quarters of an hour later, they finally staggered into Rodney's bedroom. They were both in old sweats and t-shirts already, so they just collapsed on Rodney's huge bed. "'How hard can it be,'" Rodney repeated John's words in a high falsetto, giving John a tired glare.

"Okay, okay, so I was wrong. Madison is still having the best time ever."

"Well, yes." Rodney waved one hand vaguely. The light in the bedroom was off, but they'd left the bathroom light on. "I just think it's a shame I don't have any pictures of you with the eyeliner and glitter blush."

"If you had, I would have been forced to kill you," John replied, through a yawn. After a moment, he continued. "Rodney?" 

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Rodney rolled to his side and looked at John. "For what?"

Already embarrassed, afraid to say more, John just shrugged. "For... you know."

"No, I don't." Rodney didn't sound peeved, didn't sound frustrated; he sounded tired and genuinely curious.

"For..." For everything, for giving me a real home, for just being you... "For Madison, I guess. For all this," he waved his hand vaguely.

Rodney stared at him in the half-darkness for a long time. Finally he closed the difference between them and kissed John gently. "You're a moron," he said fondly.

"Yeah, I know." John sighed. "I'm probably never going to change, either."

"It's all right," Rodney said. "I guess I can take you just the way you are."

"You're no prize either, McKay," John said, but he couldn't keep the sappy grin off his face.

"We'll manage." Then Rodney kissed him again.

They were impossibly tired and there were four six year old girls in the living room, fifty feet away.  Despite all that, the kiss grew hotter between them, until John finally rolled over with a groan, pressing himself up against Rodney. Rodney's hands slipped beneath John's t-shirt, tracing muscles over warm skin and they both moaned.

That's when Madison came in. "Unca Mer? Leah had a accident in her sleeping bag."

* * *

Somehow, they managed to get a bit more than four hours sleep that night. Leah's mother apparently had anticipated problems because Leah's bag had a waterproof pad built in and she'd sent extra pajamas. The girls were all up before the sun, watching the Cartoon Network by the time Rodney staggered out of his bedroom with Sheppard in tow. 

Pancakes and coffee later, they were beginning to feel a little more human again. When the mothers showed up to pick up children, they found their little darlings wired with sugar and lack of sleep, so all sides declared it a draw. Then, once the mess had been cleaned and the house straightened, Sheppard dropped a bomb.

"I've got a gift for the birthday girl too," he said, making Madison perk up.

"What, the piano, the tuition, the books... those weren't enough?" Rodney said, a little testily. It was almost like Sheppard was trying to buy Madison's love or something.

"Nope," Sheppard replied. He was grinning. completely unrepentant. "C'mon. It won't take long to get there."

'There' proved to be the airport, and the present ended up being a ride in a Cessna Turbo Skylane, to Rodney's shock. Sheppard had apparently pulled some strings or knew someone who knew someone, because there he was, filing a joyride flight plan, getting them geared out and into the little four-seater prop plane. Rodney wanted to object, but the elation on Madison's face prevented him from saying anything. And it wasn't as if they were in Pegasus, after all, the only thing to worry about would be other aircraft.

Well that, and Sheppard's normal penchant for hot-dogging.

Sheppard took them on a ride around Toronto and the lake, showing Madison how to fly the plane and explaining what each pedal and stick did and how it did it. It was Madison's first time in the air and she was over the moon, almost inarticulate with joy. By the time they landed, the smile on her face looked to become a permanent fixture and she was well past wired and into sleep-walking.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home. Sheppard picked her up and carried her in, Rodney leading the way. They put her on her bed, took her shoes off and got her comfortable, then left her door ajar.

The light on the message machine was blinking and Rodney hit it on the way to getting himself and Sheppard a beer.

It was Carter. "McKay, don't call me back but tell your houseguest the jig is up and his time's run out."

In the process of lifting the beer bottle to his mouth as he heard the message, Sheppard banged it on the counter with a little too much force. "Shit," he muttered, grabbing some paper towels to clean up the foamy mess. Beelzebub came out of wherever she'd been hiding since the evening before and began lapping up the puddle on the floor.

"What was that all about?" Rodney demanded. "Why was Carter calling you?"

Sheppard threw the paper towels away and sat at the kitchen table with the remains of his beer. "I was hoping to get a bit more time, but I guess that's it."

Rodney felt his heart drop into his stomach. He sat opposite Sheppard and glared at him. "What's going on, Sheppard?" he demanded.

Sighing, Sheppard sucked down half his beer in one swallow. "I... might not have been strictly honest about where I was going when I left the mountain," he said, wincing. He wouldn't meet Rodney's eyes.

"You're _AWOL?_ " Rodney asked, incredulous. 

"Well... technically," Sheppard hedged. "Sort of. I was just hoping I could keep them guessing for a bit longer."

"So they know where you are and you'll have to go back." Rodney felt vindicated and furious and panicked, all at the same time. 

"No." The denial was flat and instantaneous. "I mean, yes, they know I'm here, and I might have to go back to Cheyenne Mountain for a few days, just to wrap things up, but--"

"What do you mean, 'wrap things up?' You're going to have to go back, they'll make you--"

"No, they won't," Sheppard interrupted. "I'm pretty sure I can even wrangle an honorable discharge out of it, I think General O'Neill can get that through. I was just hoping to get the full pay thing flowing for a while longer, you know, to save more for tuition."

Rodney just stared at Sheppard, completely lost. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, when he finally found his voice again. 

Sheppard took a deep breath. "I came out on the Daedalus with another ZPM, one for the mountain." He glanced up at Rodney but quickly looked back down again. He started idly picking at the label on his bottle. "I was supposed to be taking some time off, but not, you know, going far. Only I did. I came up here, which was what I wanted to do. I wanted to... you know, talk."

"You wanted to talk." Rodney wasn't any closer to understanding, maybe he was just too sleep-deprived. 

"Yes," Sheppard said, sounding affronted, "I did! We all thought... well, we all figured you were happy here, you had, I don't know, married the Jean Miller who appeared on the proof and all, and when you never responded to the letter, we all just thought..." Sheppard waved his hand vaguely. "At the mountain I guess they knew better, but they never actually shared the info with us." Sheppard grimaced. "They probably would have, if we'd asked specifically, but... Anyway, how do you think I got your address?"

"So... why...?"

"I thought I might be able to get you to come back to Atlantis... not necessarily with me, but I know how much you love it, Rodney. I knew you'd be missing it. Not me, necessarily..." he trailed off again and Rodney just gaped at him. "I thought if I couldn't convince you to come back to Atlantis, that maybe I could at least... apologize. Maybe get you to... you know, forgive me. At least."

"And for this you went AWOL?"

Sheppard scratched the back of his neck and looked at everything in the kitchen except Rodney. "Well, yeah. Sort of. But then I got here, I met Madison, figured out... figured out how much I... you know..." He looked extremely uncomfortable but Rodney was absolutely not going to make it easy on him. "I didn't want to go. I wanted to, you know, be here. With you and Madison."

"And that hadn't been in the plan?"

"Well, not really, I mean, I figured if I couldn't get you to come back and you weren't going to forgive me that I'd... I don't know, do something else." Sheppard finally looked back up into Rodney's face. "I didn't... I don't want to go back to Atlantis without you, Rodney," he said, his voice only slightly shaky. "I know it sounds lame, but really, it's just not worth it to me any more. It took me too damn long to figure it out, and I'm sorry for that, but..."

"Why didn't you tell me this right from the start?" Rodney demanded.

"I didn't... I mean, I thought... I didn't want you to think I was, I don't know, blackmailing you, coercing you into coming back. Because I'm not. I just want..." Sheppard's mouth worked but no sounds came out. Finally, he looked down, took a deep breath, clenched his hands tightly together and whispered, "I guess I... just wanted to be where you are, if I could. That's all." He made a frustrated noise. "I'm sorry."

Rodney sat back in his chair, absolutely floored. He finally realized his mouth was hanging open and he closed it, though he still didn't know what to say, what to think. He realized that was probably the closest he was ever going to get to a declaration of love from Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, and he wasn't sure what to do with it. 

"Unca John?" Shit, Madison. They hadn't been shouting but hadn't been quiet, either. "Are you going 'way?"

Sheppard turned and opened his arms to Madison, but it was Rodney who spoke. "No, Three-M, Uncle John isn't going anywhere."

* * *

Dinner that night was sandwiches and salad. They knew that, come morning, John would have to call the SGC, but they still had the rest of Sunday. Madison was subdued as well, wanting lots of snuggle-time with both John and Rodney.

John was careful to explain what he had to do, reassuring her that he would definitely be back after his trip to the mountain. John wasn't sure who, exactly, he was trying to convince -- Madison, Rodney, or himself. Yes, General O'Neill was on his side in this (as was Carter and apparently the rest of SG1, which had surprised and pleased him) but it really wasn't all cut and dried. He might have to do some fast talking to get that honorable discharge and the pension that went along with it. 

But even if he couldn't... "You promise you'll come back?" Madison asked, after her bath and before he read her the nightly story. "You won't let them keep you from coming Home?"

John reached out and gathered her in his arms, holding her tightly. She smelled sweet, like honest love. "I promise, Maddie," he said. "This is Home for me, now, I don't want to be anywhere else. And there's nothing in the world that could keep me away. Heck, I could even just marry your uncle and become a Canadian citizen that way."

Maddie giggled but looked reassured. They decided not to start on a longer book but settled for _Melisande_ , another of Madison's favorites since it had to do with math. She liked to speculate how big Melisande could have grown before she cut her hair again, and they had tried to figure out how much her hair would have weighed as it hit the ocean.

Rodney sat with Madison after he kissed her goodnight, and John let them have privacy. When Rodney found him, he was standing on the back porch, a beer in his hand and another on the plastic picnic table next to him. Beelzebub was stalking a cricket that had somehow come in through the screen. Rodney opened the second beer and came to stand next to John.

"This is a good neighborhood," John said.

"Not enough kids for Madison," Rodney countered. "But it is quiet."

They were silent for a long moment, savoring the cool, pre-fall weather.

"Tomorrow morning, after I drop Madison off at school, I'll check in. They'll probably want me back immediately."

Rodney grunted but didn't reply.

"I'll let you know if you need to pick up Madison after school," John continued, trying to keep his voice nonchalant. He'd only been with Rodney and Madison just over a month, yet he felt worse about leaving them than he ever did about leaving Atlantis. He'd thought he'd found his home in Pegasus, but it turned out it was right in his backyard all along.

"Okay. Call my secretary and let her know." 

There really wasn't anything else to say that hadn't already been said. When they'd finished their beers, they went back inside and locked up, getting ready for bed. John went to the sofa and began to pull the cushions off but Rodney stopped him, tucking the cushion back in. "Rodney?"

"Come back with me," he said, and John stared at him, unable to read the expression on Rodney's face.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." They looked at each other for a while, then John turned off the floor lamp in the living room, leaving the rest of the house in shadow. 

In the bedroom, Rodney turned one of the bedside lamps on as John locked the door, "Just in case," he said with a small grin. 

"She's probably out for the night," Rodney replied with his own smile, "Especially after last night and today." John hadn't moved from the door and Rodney walked to him, pressed him up against the door, leaning his whole body against John's. 

And John's body recognized Rodney's. John knew the touch of Rodney's hands, knew how soft Rodney's hair was, knew the taste of his lips, his mouth. It had been more than two years, but John remembered how to kiss Rodney, how to touch him to make him moan. He remembered the places on Rodney that were sensitive, that were ticklish, that were softer than silk and ragged and scarred. 

Rodney kissed him, remained pressed against him and kissed him, slow and deep and wet and nasty. John closed his eyes and put his hands on Rodney, touched the skin under Rodney's shirt, took two handfuls of ass and pulled, brought Rodney impossibly closer. Rodney cradled John's head in his hands and stroked the shells of John's ears, ran his fingers through John's messy hair and tilted John's head until it was at the perfect angle for drinking deeply. 

It had been more than two years, but their bodies remembered what to do.

Part of John wanted to hurry, wanted to get naked and get fucked immediately, if not sooner. But a larger part of him said take it slow, make it last, let them linger. They had all the time in the world, now, and he wanted this time to be special, a reaffirmation of how he felt, finally. 

When they made it to the bed, they climbed into it together, having already shed clothing, leaving everything on the floor. John pulled Rodney on top, because he missed that weight, missed that warmth blanketing him. Rodney had always fit him, in every way, and he was such a boneheaded idiot for not realizing it sooner.

They kissed, just kissed, for a long, lazy time, letting the heat grow between them. John re-mapped Rodney's mouth in a leisurely fashion, brushing their tongues together, sucking on Rodney's lower lip, something that drove Rodney crazy. Finally, Rodney buried his face in Sheppard's neck, panting. "God! Why did I wait? I shouldn't have waited... Need you," he whispered hoarsely. 

"You too," John replied, still running his hands up and down Rodney's spine, letting his fingers dawdle in the indentation at the top of Rodney's cleft.

Rodney licked the bit of skin under his mouth, then moved off John's neck to his collarbone, painting it with his tongue as well. John let his eyes sag shut and arched, unable to keep still. Rodney took advantage and moved to the other side of John's neck, biting and licking there as well. 

When he began to move down to John's chest, John caught his breath, thinking oh, yes, please, God yes. Those times when Rodney devoted all his time and considerable attention to John, when he seemed to be methodically tasting every square centimeter of John, those times were among the best and hottest memories John had. Rodney was almost in a fugue state, humming gently in the back of his throat, covering John's body with tiny licks, bites and suck marks. He lingered over John's nipples, pinching and nibbling until John had to fight screaming with want. Back in Atlantis, something like this could have happened only once in a blue moon -- they always had to be on-call, were always aware that their time was not their own. But now, in Rodney's house on Rodney's bed, they could do anything they wanted. 

And Rodney, it seemed, wanted to rediscover John's body for himself. John was more than willing to let him.

At least Rodney didn't seem to be in the mood to tease. When he finished his journey down John's body, he licked a stripe up John's dick then just swallowed it down. John had to bite his hand to keep from shouting, from coming instantaneously. Rodney held his hips down with both hands, pressing so hard there would be bruises and John didn't give a shit that there would, he just fought the weight, mindlessly. 

It was too soon, but that appeared to be Rodney's intent; with a shout muffled by his hand, John came hard. His whole body got into it, even his hair felt like it was curling under the onslaught. Rodney sucked him through it, gentling his mouth only as the last of the aftershocks began to fade.

"Jesus," John gasped.

"I need to be inside you," Rodney replied, scrabbling for the table next to his bed. 

"God, yes." Rodney pulled a full tube of lube out of the drawer and a condom, as well, holding it up for John to see. "No. Bare." John yanked Rodney down with one hand, pulling his head down for a sloppy kiss that tasted like his come. "Please."

Rodney looked pretty much how John felt, but he nodded, his head stuttering with his want. John pulled his knees up to his body and offered himself to Rodney, waiting for that first touch. Rodney didn't hesitate, prepping John quickly and efficiently, and John was so completely relaxed from his incredible orgasm that he barely felt the burn. Then Rodney pushed himself in and God, it was so damn good.

John had forgotten Rodney was the king of stamina. He could fuck forever, it seemed like, sweat dripping off his forehead onto John's chest, breathing in time to his strokes. He lifted John's legs over his arms and set up a steady rhythm, pushing in hard and pulling out slow, raking over John's prostate nearly every time. John melted into the bed and hung on for the ride, his dick slowly filling, his whole body trembling in harmony with Rodney's. 

A particularly hard nudge against his prostate had John arching and gasping and reaching for his cock. "Rodney!" he whispered in a strained voice. 

"Yeah," Rodney said, barely coherent, hitching up a little further on the bed and stepping up the pace. "Do it, go for it... John... I'm..."

John felt another climax burning up his spine and damn, that was pretty good for a guy chasing forty, but there it was, right around the corner. "Rodney," he managed to say, again, before his entire body clenched and he came, shooting his brain and everything else in his body out his dick. 

Rodney pushed in as hard and far as he could and his body went rigid, his eyes closing as his own climax took him, then slowly toppled forward, managing to catch himself on his hands. There was an awkward moment when they both realized how completely overcome they were, then they shakily untangled and Rodney dropped to the bed next to John, still gulping air.

A long time later, John remembered how to talk. "Fuck. That was..."

"Yeah. You could say that." Rodney slung an arm over John's chest. "I'm sorry I waited this long."

John shook his head. "No. You did what you needed to do. And I'll be back. We've got forever, and I guarantee you'll be sick of me inside of a year."

"Not going to happen," Rodney shot back, catching his breath. "You're a better dad to Madison than I could ever be, just for that I--"

"McKay, for a genius, you're pretty stupid," John said, shaking his head. "She adores you. And who else could teach her the math, the physics, the engineering she needs to know? Me? I don't think so."

Rodney propped his head up on his hand and with one finger, made intricate shapes in the spunk streaking John's chest. "You were the one who made sure she had a birthday party," he said. 

"Yeah," John said, brushing one finger over Rodney's eyebrow and cheek. "And I'll be the one to take her shopping for clothes, teach her how to fly, how to ride a skateboard and a bike and roller skates. I'll be the one who'll threaten prospective boyfriends."

"Boyfriends?" Rodney looked horrified.

"We've got some time on that, Rodney," John said, chuckling. "But you're the one who was here when her parents died. You're the one who has the blood ties to her. You'll be the one to escort her down the aisle."

The look on Rodney's face was one John had never seen before and he had no idea what it meant. They just stared at each other for a long, quiet moment, then Rodney leaned down and kissed John, sweetly and carefully. 

After another few minutes, they cleaned up and got into boxers and t-shirts. Before he came back to bed with Rodney, John made sure to unlock the door and leave it just slightly ajar.

Just in case.

* * *

Colette put the call through shortly before Rodney had to leave for yet another interminable luncheon meeting. "Rodney?"

"Colonel?" There was a lot of static on the line, and Rodney could hear a roaring noise in the background.

"Listen, I don't have time, my flight leaves in -- oh, shit, now -- something's going on. I don't know what it is but it's serious, I'm going back there and find out but... pick up Maddie, okay? O'Neill sounded... damn, I've gotta go--"

"What? What's going on?"

"I don't know! I've got to hang up, they're closing the gate, listen, Rodney, I may never have the courage to say this again but I love you, I really, really love you and I'll be back, I swear. Give Maddie a kiss for me."

The line went dead and Rodney stared at the handset and forgot how to breathe.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. He was lucky there were no pressing issues for him to take care of because he wouldn't have known what he was doing. He collected Madison from school and his heart wrenched at how her face fell when she saw it was him picking her up instead of Sheppard. All the way home, she asked questions that Rodney couldn't answer, couldn't even begin to comprehend. He just made sure to tell her what Sheppard had said, that he loved them and would be back.

There was a light on the answering machine, and it was Sheppard's voice. "Rodney, Maddie, it's me, I got in safely. I can't say anything and you know why, but things are happening, the joint is jumping. I'll call as soon as I can to fill you in. Maddie, make sure your uncle eats right and Rodney, use that fake beef in the freezer before it goes bad, okay? Love you." 

It was like their lives were on hold. Rodney rearranged his schedule so that he'd be able to drop off and pick up Madison at decent hours, and the one time he had a late meeting, Colette offered to look after Madison and help her with her homework. 

Sheppard was gone for five days. Aside from his first call, there was silence. Each day he seemed a little farther away from them.

Saturdays, Madison had ballet. They were gearing up to a recital in another week and Rodney hoped like hell that Sheppard would be back in time for it. Or just back, period. Madison would be devastated if Sheppard couldn't make it. On the way home, they stopped for groceries, something Rodney hadn't had to do since before Sheppard had appeared, like magic. They had the usual argument about how much television one six year old girl needed to watch and Madison requested more computer time -- she'd discovered instant messaging and it petrified Rodney, who could only think about internet stalkers. If Sheppard had been around, he would have been able to deal with it, but alone, Rodney just over-reacted.

The phone rang and Rodney picked it up, though he was pretty sure it was just another telemarketer. "Rodney?"

"Colonel?!" Madison came running in from her room as soon as she heard Rodney. "Where are you?"

"I'm about ten minutes away," Sheppard replied and Rodney could _hear_ his grin. "Is the house clean? You've got visitors."

"What? Why... where... I mean..."

"Breathe, McKay. I've got Carter with me in the truck and Mitchell and Jackson following in a rental. We'll be there in less than ten, I just wanted to give you the chance to get the dirty underwear off the floor."

Madison was jumping up and down next to Rodney, demanding the phone. "Madison, wait a minute, okay? You're here? You're on your way home?" Madison cheered.

Sheppard laughed. "Tell Maddie to go straighten her room real quick. Because yes, I'm home. I'm really home. I've got to hang up, traffic is a bitch. See you soon."

The line went dead and Rodney banged it on the cradle. "It's a good thing we got groceries!" he said, then Sheppard's words finally sank in. "He's bringing _Carter_?"

He was, indeed, bringing Carter. And Mitchell and Jackson, too, all of them in civvies and looking around like they'd never seen a neighborhood before. Madison was running for the truck almost before it stopped and leapt on Sheppard the moment he opened the door. He caught her in his arms and hugged her tightly; Rodney wanted to do the same but his audience made him hesitate.

Carter was looking around, her face showing her approval. "Nice place, McKay," she said, holding out her hand.

From the look on her face, Rodney could tell it was clearly a peace offering and he took it. "It's home," he said, then pulled her into a quick hug. "Thank you for bringing him back," he continued in a whisper before letting her go.

"It was really more the other way around," she said softly. As Sheppard came around the truck,  Madison still in his arms with her face buried in his neck, Carter smiled. "All he's been talking about for the past week was you and some kid named Madison who is apparently smarter than you are."

"She is," Rodney said proudly. Sheppard reached them and to Rodney's shock, he slung his free arm around Rodney's shoulders, hugging him tightly.

"God, I missed you," Sheppard said, kissing his temple. Madison giggled. "And this is Madison Meredith Miller, certified genius. Maddie, this is Samantha Carter."

"Hi," Madison said, keeping a tight grip on Sheppard but looking at Carter with a combination of curiosity and shyness. 

"Hi yourself," Carter replied, her smile going gentle. "It's nice to meet you, finally. And these two guys are Daniel and Cam. Daniel's the one with the glasses. Don't worry if you can't tell them apart, none of us can, either," she confided in a stage whisper.

"I heard that, Colonel," Mitchell said. He nodded, looking around. "Nice place, Shep. And it's good to meet you, Dr. McKay. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, SG1. I've heard a lot about you." He stuck his hand out and Rodney took it. 

"And it's probably all a lie," Rodney replied, shaking Mitchell's hand. He nodded at Jackson, who smiled and nodded back. "Let's go inside before Madison gives Colonel Sheppard a hernia."

"You can't call me that any more, Rodney," Sheppard drawled and Rodney stopped dead, turned to him in shock. "Nope. No more rank. Guess you're going to have to start using my name."

"You're not... you don't..." This was just getting too much. "I need a beer."

"I second that!" Jackson said and they all went into the house.

* * *

"It's the Ori," John said.

"Them, and the NID," Carter said, from her seat on the living room floor. The adults had beers and Carter was playing with Maddie, helping her build something with her Erector Set. "John said you never got the letter, Rodney, and that's why. We -- I mean, SG1 -- we didn't get it either, the NID withheld it. General Landry knew but couldn't figure out a way to get it to you or us without tipping off the NID."

"Those bas-- buggers," Rodney said, his righteous wrath derailed by his need not to swear in front of Madison.

"Well, they're not a problem any more," Mitchell drawled. "Not since we discovered some of their key personnel in bed with the System Lords. And found out how badly they were infiltrated by the Goa'uld." 

"It's going to take them a couple years at least before they can recover sufficiently to be trusted again," Jackson affirmed.

"And we're really just so broken up about that," Mitchell added, in a voice that would have been serious if anyone could believe him.

"But it was the Ori that have been giving everyone problems," John said, getting back to his topic. Rodney was in his favorite chair and John was perched on one of the arms, leaning into him. Jackson and Mitchell were on the sofa. "That's what the second ZPM was about, so we could power the station in Antarctica."

"And the drones," Mitchell added. "But in the end, they weren't enough."

"No," Carter said, giving Rodney a quick smile. "Don't faint Rodney, but we needed you. Still do, in fact." She and Madison seemed to be building something along the lines of abstract art. John couldn't make heads or tails out of it but Madison had her concentration face on. She'd finally let go her stranglehold on John once she realized he really was going to stay. When she took Carter on a tour of her room, they'd emerged with the Erector Set between them. Carter had been like a little kid herself, grinning maniacally as they dumped the pieces all over the carpet.

"But NID wouldn't let us try to get you back," Jackson said, bringing John back to the conversation. He leaned forward with a frown, studying whatever it was that Carter and Madison were doing. "Seemed you weren't liked by them very much, which we think might have either been because you were involved in a homosexual relationship or were too smart for them and they felt threatened by you or something like that, and is that one of those things? Bucky balls?"

Madison gave him a withering stare. "A'course not," she said. "A BB is a regular gee-oh-desick spherey thing."

"Geodesic, Madison," Rodney corrected absently. He was obviously still in shock over Carter admitting they needed him, so missed the look that went between the rest of the alleged grown-ups in the house.

"We've already recharged all the ZPMs that we have, minus the one that exploded," Carter said, staring at Madison's creation.

"What?" Rodney demanded. "One _exploded_?"

Carter sighed. "Yeah, one exploded and yes, it was partially my fault for misinterpreting your paper. It's okay, we figured it out with the rest, we just had to move to Atlantis to recharge them. Turns out we can't fully recharge a ZPM, top them up, as it were. The trick was figuring out when to stop charging."

"You can't?" John looked down to see Rodney's brow furrowed. "Have you tried recharging one you've depleted? I wonder if it's a constant rate of--"

"Rodney," John said, nudging him with one hip, "focus. That's not the issue."

"No, the issue is we need more of those things to recharge," Mitchell said. "At least two, but more would be great. Sheppard seems to think you're the only one who could figure out how to make them."

"Well, yes," Rodney said, in his duh voice, "though I haven't thought about it much. After all, just recharging them should have given us all that we needed."

"Not with the Ori on our butts," Mitchell growled. "We're under a time limit, too, because we don't know when they'll be able to get their supergate up and running. We're making it as hard for them to finish it as we can, but they'll be figuring out how to get past us in--"

"Rodney." Carter's voice was soft but her tone stopped Mitchell in mid-word. Madison had spaced out again.

"It's okay," John said softly. He moved from his perch, settling to the floor just behind Madison. She was holding one of the patterns she'd made out of the Erector Set, turning it over and around in her hands, her little face blank. "She does this occasionally." John looked up at Rodney, who was pale but nodding.

John carefully stretched his legs out on either side of Madison, not touching her but trying to let her feel his presence. He noticed she was humming under her breath, almost inaudibly and decided to ask Rodney if he'd ever noticed that before -- later, he'd ask later. Once she came out of it.

Her focus was completely on the little structure in her hands for several long minutes, while silence filled the room around her. Finally, she looked up, smiling at John first then looking to Rodney. "Unca Mer? I think I know how to fold subspace like the wormy-holes do."

"You do?" Rodney asked, and John really admired him that carefully nonchalant tone. "Do you need some help with it?"

"Uh-huh." Madison looked at Carter. "You're building them wrong, silly!" she said with a huge grin.

Carter seemed a little spooked, but game. "What do you mean, honey?"

"You wanna make 'em hollow, but they can't be cuz that doesn't work right. They gotta be like... like..." She thought for a minute then turned to John, holding up the shape in her hands. "What's this called, Unca John? Like the fence thingy the roses grow on?"

"A trellis? Latticework?" John hazarded and she nodded.

"Yeah. Like this! It holds all the fake subspacey stuff away from itself so the energy can get through. See? It's easy."

Rodney inhaled sharply. "You mean for the ZedPMs? The things your mom and I worked on?"

"Uh-huh! What's for dinner? Can we have pizza?"

"Holy shi-- sh-- sugar and spice," Rodney managed to get out, as he stared at Carter.

Madison sniggered. "Close one, Unca Mer."

" _You_ are obviously a demon spawn child, and no, it won't be pizza." Rodney looked at John and John wondered if his face looked as ecstatic as Rodney's did.

* * *

In the end, they just sent out for Chinese food, because Rodney felt guilty about feeding Madison so much pizza while Sheppard had been gone. Not that he'd say that to Sheppard, of course.

Carter was freaked and Jackson was both appalled and impressed and Mitchell wanted more beer. Madison sucked down her Moo Goo Gai Pan and drew pictures with her crayons. One showed two men, one with wild, black hair, and a little girl standing together under a sky, from which a woman and a man appeared, watching the threesome. Rodney took it to mean they were going to be okay.

Sheppard followed Rodney into the kitchen to get more napkins and beer. He pushed Rodney up against the refrigerator and kissed him in a way that convinced Rodney he was really staying. "They're going to want us to go back to Atlantis, Rodney," he murmured into Rodney's dazed face.

"I can't," Rodney whispered back. "You know that!"

"Actually, I think _we_ can. You, me and Madison. Trust me, Rodney," he added as Rodney opened his mouth to speak. "Once you see what I've seen, you might agree that Pegasus is actually the safer place for us right now, and _us_ is all I care about. The Wraith are nearly gone, the city has full ZPM power, we can even submerge her if we need to. The Ori, on the other hand..."

"How can they be worse than the Wraith?" Rodney hissed, glancing over Sheppard's shoulder to make sure they weren't seen by those in the living room.

"They are." Sheppard's voice was low and serious and absolutely freaked Rodney out. If _Sheppard_ was afraid...

"We'll talk about it," Rodney conceded. "I want to see the full reports. And wait a minute, you said we, as in you too, but you're... what about your rank?"

"I don't have any rank, not anymore." He scratched the back of his neck and grinned. "The U.S. Government decided they didn't really want me once I admitted I was in a homosexual relationship and didn't want to end it any time soon. But under the new regs, they can't just cashier me, they've got to base it on my conduct and recent record. So I'm officially honorably discharged, three-quarters pension based on my former rank at retirement, and the SGC wants to hire me as a civilian security contractor." His grin widened as he looked into Rodney's stunned face. "Wanna get married?"

It took Rodney almost thirty seconds to process all that. Finally, he dragged his jaw up from the floor, narrowed his eyes and popped Sheppard on the shoulder. " _You_ are a _dick_."

"Yeah, but I'm _your_ dick, right?" 

There was only one thing to do with that self-satisfied smirk on Sheppard's face, so Rodney did it, just kissed it until they were both on the way to getting hard and finding a horizontal surface. 

"Unca Mer!" Madison's voice drifted in from the living room, bringing them back to earth. "Can I have some cookies for dessert?"

"Cookies?" Sheppard perked up as well. "You got cookies? The good kind?"

Rodney rolled his eyes -- he had hoped to keep some of those to himself, guess that was shot now. So he dug the bag out from the back of the cabinet, had Sheppard bring the milk and extra beer and moved out into the living room. But he was going to get Sheppard for that. He _liked_ Double-Stuf Oreos, dammit!

The cookies were greeted like returning heroes -- or maybe it was the beer, it was hard to tell. Madison demonstrated the 'proper' way to eat Oreos, then she and Jackson got into an argument about whether it was better to dunk _before_ you pulled them apart or after. It grew heated and Madison appealed to higher powers. "Unca Mer, tell him!"

"I've found that arguing such things with a five -- excuse me! six -- year old generally points to one's own level of emotional maturity," Rodney said, and Sheppard threw a half of an Oreo at him. The plain half, of course.

"Wait, what did you call him, Madison?" Carter asked, puzzled. "You don't call him Uncle Rodney, do you?"

"It's a nickname," Sheppard said before Rodney could open his mouth. "Isn't it?" he continued looking between Rodney and Madison. "I mean, I thought it... I never asked... "

"It's--" Rodney started but Madison beat him to it.

"It's his _name_ , silly! Unca Meredith. Unca Mer. Like you're Unca John!"

Rodney closed his eyes. Oh, shit.

Sheppard's grin was incandescent. " _Meredith_?"

end


End file.
